Consulting
Network Assessment
An independent, evidence-based review of your network that tells you where it stands, where the risk is, and what to do first.
Every engagement starts with a free 30-minute scoping call.
When an assessment helps
- You are planning a refresh, a migration, or a budget cycle and want an independent view before committing.
- Leadership has asked whether the network is ready for a cloud, security, or growth initiative.
- Incidents or performance complaints keep recurring and nobody has the full picture.
- You inherited a network through acquisition or staff turnover and need to know what you own.
- You are buying or investing in an organization and need to know what its network will cost to bring up to standard.
- Your VAR or MSP has offered a free assessment, and you want findings from someone with nothing to sell.
What we examine
The scope is agreed with you at the outset. A full assessment covers six areas; a targeted assessment concentrates on the one that matters for the decision in front of you.
Architecture & design
Topology, routing and switching design, redundancy, and how well the design matches current and planned workloads.
Security posture
Segmentation, 802.1X access control, firewall policy, remote access, and exposure of the management plane.
Resilience
Single points of failure, failover behavior, and the realistic recovery time for the failures most likely to occur.
Performance & capacity
Utilization, latency, and error rates on critical paths, and the headroom that remains against expected growth.
Operations
Monitoring coverage, alert quality, change process, configuration consistency, and the state of documentation.
Lifecycle & cost
Hardware and software support status, licensing, and spend, mapped against the roadmap you already have.
Targeted assessments
When one question matters more than the whole picture, the same method is applied to a single area, at a smaller scope and price.
- SD-WAN & SASE readiness
- Wireless assessment
- Firewall policy review
- Cloud connectivity review
- Pre-acquisition due diligence
What you receive
Every finding is backed by evidence, rated by risk and effort, and explained in plain language, so the report is as useful to leadership as it is to engineers.
- Findings reportWhat we found, the evidence behind it, and why it matters to the business.
- Prioritized recommendationsA sequenced plan that separates what to fix now, what to plan for, and what to leave alone.
- Executive summaryA short, board-ready view of the network’s condition and the investment case.
- Architecture baselineCurrent-state diagrams and an inventory your team can keep using after the engagement.
- Working sessionA walkthrough with your team to answer questions and agree on next steps.
Inside the report
Every Metis assessment report follows the same structure, so leadership can read the first ten pages and engineers can work from the rest.
- Executive summaryThe condition of the network in two pages, the findings that matter most, and the investment case.
- Scope and methodWhat was in scope, what was examined, how evidence was gathered, and what was excluded.
- Architecture baselineCurrent-state diagrams, inventory, and support status for every platform in scope.
- Findings by areaArchitecture, security posture, resilience, performance and capacity, operations, and lifecycle and cost. Each finding carries its evidence, a risk rating, an effort estimate, and a recommendation.
- Prioritized planWhat to fix now, what to plan for, and what to leave alone, sequenced with dependencies.
- AppendicesConfiguration excerpts, monitoring data, and interview notes: the evidence behind every finding.
How the engagement runs
The same four-phase discipline as every Metis engagement, at the depth an assessment needs. There is nothing to implement until you decide there is.
How we workUnderstand
A scoping conversation agrees on the questions that matter: the initiatives on the horizon, the incidents that prompted the review, and the boundaries of the environment. We sign the NDA, arrange read-only access, and gather evidence directly: configuration review, monitoring data, packet-level analysis where it is needed, and interviews with the people who run and depend on the network.
Architect
Findings are validated with your team before they are written up, so the report contains no surprises and no guesswork. Each one is rated by risk and effort, and the recommendations are sequenced into a plan that separates what to fix now from what to plan for.
Enable
A working session walks your team through the report and agrees on next steps. The report is written to be acted on by your team, by Metis, or by a partner of your choosing.
Questions we are asked
The questions that come up on most scoping calls for an assessment.
My VAR or MSP offers a free assessment. Why pay for one?
A free assessment is the first step of a sales process, and its purpose is the proposal that follows. Nobody can grade their own proposal. A Metis assessment has no proposal behind it: we sell no hardware, take no commissions, and will not bid to run the network, so the findings are only findings.
What access do you need, and is it safe?
We sign a mutual NDA before we see a configuration, a diagram, or a credential. Assessments and designs use read-only accounts and exported configurations. We take write access only during an agreed change window and only under your change process. Where packet captures are needed, they are taken from mirror ports or your existing tools and agreed with your team in advance.
Will the assessment disrupt the network?
No. Evidence gathering is read-only, and interviews are scheduled around your team’s day. The only changes that happen are the ones you decide to make after reading the report.
Is the work remote or onsite?
Most of the work is remote. We come onsite for wireless surveys, for cutover windows, and whenever seeing the room is the fastest way to understand it.
How is an assessment priced?
As a fixed fee against an agreed scope, quoted after the scoping call. The proposal states scope, deliverables, and price before any work starts. A targeted assessment is scoped and priced the same way, at a smaller size.
Related services
Start with a 30-minute scoping call.
Tell us where you’re headed and what’s in the way. A senior engineer will call to understand your situation, not to pitch.
- We read your message and reply to arrange the call at a time that suits you.
- A senior engineer joins the call to understand your environment and what you are trying to achieve.
- If there is a fit, you receive a written proposal with scope, deliverables, and price. If there is not, we say so and point you in a better direction.