Prior to tackling CMMC compliance, a business must make the crucial decision of whether to bring their entire existing IT infrastructure into scope or to build a separate, compliant enclave specifically for their Department of Defense (DoD) work. This decision dramatically affects the scope, timeline, cost, and long-term maintainability of your CMMC implementation, and it shouldn’t be taken lightly.

Choosing to build an enclave can significantly reduce costs and effort by isolating compliance to just the systems and personnel who handle Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI). On the other hand, taking an enterprise approach—where your entire environment is brought into compliance—can streamline operations if DoD work is central to your business, while also elevating cybersecurity maturity across the organization.

The following breaks down the two approaches:

Enclave

An enclave is a separate, tightly controlled IT environment built specifically for handling CUI. This controlled environment limits access to only authorized users and applies stronger security controls to meet compliance requirements. Pertinent to CMMC, an enclave allows small businesses to limit the scope of CMMC controls to a smaller, more manageable subset of their organization.

One of the biggest advantages of an enclave approach is cost-efficiency. By isolating your CMMC requirements to just a few systems and users, you dramatically reduce the number of controls you need to implement. This means faster implementation, fewer licenses and tools to manage, and a reduced audit burden. An enclave also minimizes disruption to the rest of your business — your commercial operations can continue largely unaffected and remain out of scope. For many small businesses, this isolation translates into quicker wins and a more focused compliance effort.

However, the enclave model isn’t without tradeoffs. You’ll likely have to duplicate certain systems like email, file storage, or collaboration tools to keep them separated from your main environment. This can introduce operational friction, especially if team members have to toggle between compliant and non-compliant environments. Over time, as your DoD contracts expand, the enclave may become a bottleneck or require significant rework to scale.

The enclave model works best for small to mid-sized businesses that do a limited amount of DoD work or have dedicated staff and systems for government contracts. It’s a great way to achieve compliance without overhauling your entire infrastructure.

Enterprise

An enterprise-wide approach to CMMC brings your entire organization into the scope of compliance. Every system, user, and process must meet the necessary security requirements; it’s a more comprehensive, but also more complex, path.

The key benefit here is operational simplicity: there’s no need to juggle two environments or worry about CUI accidentally leaking outside of the enclave. Everyone operates under the same rules, using the same tools, and sharing the same secure systems. This unified approach can simplify collaboration, improve internal communication, and eliminate silos. It also has long-term strategic value. If your business is heavily invested in the defense sector—or plans to be—then an enterprise CMMC program ensures you’re building security into your core, not treating it as an add-on.

Of course, this comes at a cost. With the enterprise model, every asset in your environment from legacy endpoints to SaaS apps needs to be documented, assessed, and brought into compliance. The timeline is often longer, and the up-front investment higher. It also requires more effort from your team, as all employees will need to follow the required security policies and undergo regular training. And because the scope is broad, there are more potential gaps that could emerge during an audit.

An enterprise approach is best suited for companies where DoD work is central to operations, or where splitting environments would create more inefficiencies than it solves. If done well, it can also serve as a strong cybersecurity foundation that benefits the entire organization — not just your compliance posture.

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Take Home

When deciding whether to move forward with an enclave or enterprise approach, you really just need to consider cost, operational friction, and the percentage of your business that is directly tied to DoD contracting. If you’re struggling to make the call, set up a complementary consultation with our CMMC experts and we will be happy to review your current environment and give some pointers on which direction makes the most sense for your business.

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