SASE is a cloud-based security framework that delivers access control across locations, devices and applications. It’s becoming increasingly popular for organizations struggling with digital transformation, remote working and cybersecurity risks. It’s built around a comprehensive toolkit, including SD-WAN, FWaaS, ZTNA, CASB, SWG, DLP, sensitive data, malware inspection, and user entity behavior analytics.
Increased Performance
SASE enables organizations to achieve greater efficiency in connecting to cloud and data center applications, devices and resources. It is precious for organizations with remote workers or employees who frequently work in off-site locations. As digital business trends accelerate, enterprises need a more flexible and efficient approach to networking and security. It requires a single-pane-of-glass solution that streamlines network operations and simplifies security management. Instead of building an ever-growing pile of point solutions that are individually managed and maintained, the SASE framework integrates networking and security functions in a unified, cloud-based model. It reduces complexity and allows IT teams to focus on responding quickly to business challenges.
The SASE network also provides better visibility and control of bandwidth and applications, enabling a proactive approach to security. It translates into more reliable performance and fewer hiccups that affect productivity. Unlike other WAN solutions that rely on a single provider, SASE reaches across multiple data centers to provide access to all resources – even the most sensitive – through a global network of points of presence (PoPs). It means employees can use their devices and mobile apps at home, in the office or on the road to connect with the tools they need without sacrificing the expected quality of service. Choosing the right vendor to deliver a SASE framework is critical. It should include a converged cloud-native software stack that covers on-site, mobile, and cloud-based network edges and dynamic network support that supports optimal user experience.
Higher Cost Savings
SASE is a cloud-based service that unifies network and security functions into a single multitenant platform. It reduces complexity and increases efficiency in operations. It can also simplify ongoing management, lowering the overall cost of maintaining the solution. Today’s business environment is becoming increasingly complex, with users, devices, applications, and data spread across multiple cloud services and remote offices. To stay competitive, companies need to secure their data everywhere — and SASE can help.
As a result, many organizations are seeking to break down tech silos, eliminate outdated technologies, and automate mundane networking and security chores. SASE helps deliver on these promises while delivering higher performance, improved visibility and more consistent security at lower costs. In addition, SASE supports a wide range of enterprise security policies and tools, from access control and encryption to advanced malware detection and phishing protection. It also provides comprehensive visibility into traffic, enabling companies to spot anomalies quickly and take action. By integrating cloud security functions into a unified architecture, SASE can help organizations achieve granular visibility and fine-grained control of user and system access to corporate services and applications. It can also support zero-trust networking (ZTNA) capabilities to protect critical infrastructure from cyberattacks and malicious traffic. SASE is an ideal choice for enterprises that want to secure their network and end-to-end data as it travels through a global edge network, reducing latency and increasing performance. It also ensures that latency-sensitive collaboration applications, VolP systems and video can be delivered quickly and securely.
Better Security
With the rise of cloud services, mobile workforces and edge networks, traditional security architectures need to address the needs of the modern enterprise. Gartner predicts that by 2024, more traffic will be moving outside the traditional enterprise perimeter to public clouds than to on-premises enterprise data centers.
This shift puts traditional network security at risk, as conventional systems do not offer optimal security, control, and performance for today’s dynamic business environment. Rather than deploying multiple-point solutions that are costly and difficult to manage, SASE combines all network and security capabilities in a single, converged software stack.
It reduces complexity by enforcing policy equally across all locations, and it increases the security of assets. It also offers a more consistent user experience by ensuring users are always connected to the best available service, regardless of location.
Organizations need to understand their user base and network architecture to make the most of SASE. This information will help them configure their SASE architecture to meet their unique security requirements. In addition, organizations should get buy-in from their team members and ensure they understand how the transition will affect them. It will make the transition more seamless and allow them to maintain high productivity during the changeover. It will also ensure that they can adapt to any new changes.
Reduced Complexity
The ubiquity of mobile, cloud-based applications and the proliferation of users at branch offices and remote locations makes security a critical part of business operations. To deliver an optimal user experience, organizations must provide secure access to the data center and cloud-based services from anywhere users are located.
Despite this growing need, typical vast area network (WAN) security architectures focus on the enterprise data center and its core services. The lack of distributed computing environments and the increasing need for mobility will force an evolution of this architecture.
To meet this requirement, SASE offers a global fabric of PoPs to deliver WAN and security capabilities that are low latency in every location where business offices, cloud applications, and mobile users are located. These PoPs are typically situated in IaaS providers and colocation facilities and must be globally connected to enable low latency performance across the entire SASE deployment. This unified SASE architecture can be deployed quickly and rapidly to accommodate network flexibility, scaling to accommodate changes as new services come online, user communities expand, or branch offices are added. Moreover, changes are less disruptive because they don’t involve new hardware or re-configurations. Instead, they are performed in the SASE Cloud without consuming much time by a network technician, as required modifications can be made quickly with complete visibility and logging.