Market analyst firm, Gartner, believes that the combination of work from anywhere, cloud migration and digital transformation is creating a very different network security landscape to manage. To protect anywhere, anytime access to digital capabilities, they say security must become software-defined and cloud-delivered. This may require significant changes to security architecture and vendor selection.
Providing the right level of network access to the right people at the right points in the network becomes critical.
The answer according to many experts is SASE (Secure Access Service Edge). Today SASE is described as the convergence of cloud-managed SD WAN and cloud-delivered security – but it is rapidly evolving. According to Cisco, for example, SASE offers an alternative to traditional data centre-oriented security. It unifies networking and security services into a cloud-delivered service to provide access and security from edge to edge — including the data centre, remote offices, roaming users, and beyond.
The theory, therefore, is that SASE provides secure access to the cloud for users anywhere.
So, ideal perhaps for organisations struggling to adapt and secure a hybrid workforce comprised of a growing remote workforce. SASE could offer a more scalable, centralised way of securing them. Since SASE is a cloud-delivered solution, it also allows customers to shift away from purchasing numerous point-products to secure different parts of their networks and adopt a more operational cost service model as well.
It seems like I should buy SASE immediately.
Not so fast. SASE offerings are still early in their maturity and aren’t always well architected for the UK market. They are also typically still at a high price-point due to the relative immaturity of the market, so whilst the concept makes total sense, the commercial market-offering isn’t necessarily ready for many customers.
OK, so what do I do instead?
An alternative to deploying a pure-play SASE service, is to deploy the features and functionality through your WAN/connectivity solution.
By choosing a network services provider such as MLL, with a proven track record in both networking and security, SASE features will help customers simplify daily management, offer better security protection, and improve network performance, delivered as part of an end-to-end managed service.
Looking to the future, SASE offers exciting potential for consolidating numerous networking and security functions into a single integrated cloud service. Enterprise organisations will not only benefit from reduced costs and complexity, but also by being able to apply a more consistent and centralised security policy, real-time application optimisation and more secure remote and mobile access. With more streamlined network access, security will be optimised along with network performance.
Watch this space for more blogs and advice on future networking technology trends as well as details about our forthcoming webinar.