Secure Access Service Edge, or SASE (pronounced “sassy”), is one of the most hotly discussed topics in the industry today. In a report by Gartner titled ‘The Future of Network Security in the Cloud’. The research firm claims that by 2024, “40% of enterprises will have explicit strategies to adopt SASE, up from less than 1% at year-end 2018”. This begs the question, what is SASE, and why is it such a focal point in the industry today?
Put merely, SASE is an emerging cybersecurity concept that was introduced by Gartner. SASE brings together the functions of network and security point solutions into a cohesive, cloud-based service that empowers IT departments to provide an all-inclusive, agile, and versatile service to its users. SASE is a truly revolutionary concept that will have a wide-ranging, long-lasting impact across multiple IT disciplines.
In the era of COVID-19, characterized by large numbers of people working at home or other remote locations, SASE has never been more relevant. As a result of the massive change in how companies operate and how their employees work post-COVID-19, IT departments have had to scramble to meet the “new normal.” With the same resources they had pre-COVID, IT departments have had to plan, design, implement and manage the hurried expansion of their traditional network to include multi-cloud environments, SaaS applications, the massive adoption of IoT, and more.
SASE couldn’t have come at a better time. The main idea behind SASE are solutions that ensure secure access to distributed resources to a highly mobile workforce. The main benefits of SASE center on the following:
- Flexibility because it is a cloud-based concept;
- Cost savings because it unifies everything into a single platform;
- Simplicity due to manageability via one platform;
- Better performance due to the versatility of cloud infrastructure;
- Enhanced usability with easy access for users on or off the corporate network;
- Heighten threat prevention with more security and visibility into your network;
- Improve data security with comprehensive data protection policies
To make SASE work for your organization, you need to create something customized to the needs of your organization and keep three areas in mind, namely:
1. Consolidating security and networking for manageability and simplicity;
2. Choosing security solutions that work together for complementary and comprehensive protection
3. Flexible user applicability to meet a wide range of usage scenarios, including the need for interoperating with other third-party solutions.
SD-WAN fits into this concept perfectly. It is designed to provide reliable connectivity and performance across the public internet while keeping data, applications, transactions, and workflows safe and secure. By combing virtual solutions with physical systems, organizations can effectively create and implement consistent policies, such as zero-trust networking that provides security and access controls to essential resources across the entire network, not just one portion of it. This ensures that any user, wherever they may be, and regardless of what device they are using, can securely and easily access the resources they require to get their jobs done.
Learn more about Lanner’s SASE platform: