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MALA Technology Advisors
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Network & Connectivity · Research & Development

A national-security R&D center rebuilt its WAN and cut $1M in recurring cost.

Dual carriers, diverse paths and SD-WAN replaced a fragile single-carrier network, while monthly recurring charges dropped by about $1 million over three years.

Carrier A Carrier B SD-WAN
$1M
MRC savings over 36 months
~$27.8K
Less in recurring charges per month
2
Diverse carriers at every major site
0
Single-carrier dependencies at core sites

The client

A federally funded R&D center that develops advanced technology for national-security sponsors, from sensors and communications to large-scale computing.

Mission
National security research
Scale
Several thousand scientists and engineers
Footprint
Main campus plus dispersed field, test and partner sites
Engagement
Audit, architecture, sourcing, migration

The challenge

A network grown site by site had become fragile, dated and overpriced.

Researchers move large datasets between facilities, a high-performance computing center, test ranges and sponsors. An outage could stall a test campaign or a sponsor deliverable.

Single points of failure
One carrier, one physical path. A single fiber cut could isolate remote sites.
Aging technology
Legacy MPLS and end-of-support routers with little application visibility.
Rising demand
Data-intensive research outgrew circuit sizes set years earlier.
Cost creep
Auto-renewals, legacy rates and unused circuits piled up on the bill.
Zero tolerance for disruption
Every change had to meet federal security requirements and fit program schedules.

Our approach

We don't start with a product. We start with the problem.

As a vendor-neutral advisor, MALA was accountable for the right answer, not for selling a carrier or a box.

01
Discovery & expense audit
Every circuit, contract and invoice inventoried, and every physical path mapped.
02
Requirements
Availability and bandwidth targets set by site tier with network, security and research teams.
03
Target architecture
A carrier-diverse SD-WAN design aligned to the client's security zones.
04
Competitive sourcing
Multi-carrier RFP, market-benchmarked pricing, co-terminous terms and no auto-renewals.
05
Phased migration
Pilot first, then waves with parallel running and rollback plans, timed around programs.
06
Decommission & govern
Legacy circuits retired, billing stops verified, and quarterly reviews in place.

The solution

Two independent carriers under one SD-WAN fabric. No single circuit can take a site offline.

Before
Main campus single path Carrier A · legacy MPLS Field siteTest sitePartner site
After
Main campus SD-WAN OVERLAY Carrier A Carrier B Field siteTest sitePartner site
Resiliency
Dual carriers with verified, physically diverse entries, active-active. Remote sites gained backup transport with automatic failover.
Modern technology
Application-aware SD-WAN replaced static MPLS routing, on circuits sized for today's data volumes.
Security built in
End-to-end encryption, with segmentation mapped to existing security zones and firewall policy.
Central control
One console for per-application visibility, pushing policy to every site at once.

Results

Every dollar of savings came from lower monthly recurring charges.

About $27,800 less in MRC per month on average, with no reliance on one-time credits or soft savings.

Legacy MPLS replaced with competitively sourced Ethernet/DIA and SD-WAN
$560K
Carrier rates renegotiated to current market pricing
$260K
Unused, duplicate and mis-billed circuits disconnected
$180K
Total MRC savings · 36 months
$1,000,000
Beyond cost
Core: one carrier and path → two diverse carriers, active-active
Remote sites: no backup → automatic failover
Bandwidth: fixed, dated sizes → scalable on demand
Visibility: per-application performance dashboard
Contracts: co-terminous, stronger SLAs, no auto-renewal

Why it worked

The savings paid for the resiliency.

Audit before architecture
Knowing exactly what was installed and billed made the case concrete.
Vendor-neutral sourcing
Carriers competed on price, SLAs and path diversity, not incumbency.
Resiliency by design
Physical path diversity was verified, not assumed from two names on a contract.
Research-first cutovers
Waves followed program calendars, so no deliverable was disrupted.
Follow-through
Decommissioning and billing checks kept savings from leaking after go-live.

Is your WAN costing more than it should?

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Talk to an Advisor
MALA Technology Advisors · 500 N Commercial St, Suite 502, Manchester, NH 03101
+1 (603) 802-2469 · info@malatechadvisors.com