SASE integrates networking and security services into a single unified service, reducing the number of solutions enterprises need to manage. It also helps decrease the cost of implementing and maintaining these services.

IT teams should evaluate vendors that offer a complete SASE solution to ensure they understand the architecture and ROI model. This includes assessing CASB, SD-WAN, and Zero Trust network access technologies.

Security

As organizations increasingly prioritize secure and efficient network infrastructures, innovative solutions like SASE architecture play a pivotal role, seamlessly integrating comprehensive security services with WAN capabilities to meet the evolving demands of modern enterprises.

As digital business demands more flexibility, your network and security must scale with the needs of users and applications. Traditional hub-and-spoke architectures can’t handle this growth. Still, SASE scales your network and security with cloud-delivered capabilities that can support work-from-anywhere access while protecting against modern threats like multichannel phishing, data exfiltration, and insider threats.

As organizations increasingly prioritize secure and efficient network infrastructures, innovative solutions like SASE architecture play a pivotal role, seamlessly integrating comprehensive security services with WAN capabilities to meet the evolving demands of modern enterprises.

Unlike point solutions, SASE consolidates networking and security functions into one service to reduce complexity and improve integration. This approach can help organizations save time and money while eliminating the need for costly and complex point products. This unified network and security model also enables more efficient, lower latency connections to applications for end users.

This strategy can also eliminate the need for virtual private networks (VPNs), with SASE delivering zero trust network access (ZTNA) to employees’ devices and locations. ZTNA uses identity and real-time context to identify the device, user, and application and enforce pre-defined security or compliance policies before enabling connection.

Ensure that SASE will complement your existing infrastructure by understanding your organization’s needs, current setup, and present knowledge and tech landscape. Select a solution that seamlessly integrates with your existing tools and test SASE in a controlled environment before deployment to ensure it will be effective for your work. This will give you the confidence that SASE will deliver on your objectives and provide vital protection for your users, networks, data, and assets.

SASE Architecture

Networking

In addition to delivering comprehensive network security, SASE offers a variety of networking solutions. These range from backbone and edge unification to content delivery networks, CASBs, virtual private network replacement, and more. In many cases, the networking features of SASE are combined with security options into a single service that eliminates silos between networking and security teams while significantly reducing hardware, software, and maintenance costs.

The most notable element of SASE is its ability to offer centralized control of a complex array of networking and security tools in one package. This allows organizations to use the best available technologies for a specific application without investing in hardware from multiple vendors. This can also save time and effort for IT teams focused on supporting a wide range of applications.

Another benefit of SASE is its ability to improve performance for remote users by accelerating data transfer using WAN optimization and routing traffic to global POPs closer to the end user. This can be a significant advantage for organizations with large staff working remotely.

Finally, a key feature of SASE is its ability to provide advanced network security services by identifying and authenticating devices and users, ensuring that all connections are secure, and preventing unauthorized access to systems. This can help protect against various threats, from data theft and hacking to business email compromise (BEC). It can also reduce the risk of malware attacks by detecting malicious traffic and red-flagging it.

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Deployment

Deploying SASE solutions requires a collaborative effort between network and security teams. Enterprises should prioritize identifying and onboarding SASE tools that support the needs of both functions while providing seamless integration for streamlined operations. Implementing a phased approach, rather than rolling out SASE across the entire organization at once, is also advisable to minimize disruption and ensure proper operation.

The most reputable SASE service providers offer a complete set of networking and security capabilities, including CASBs, SD-WAN, cloud firewalls, zero-trust network access, and more. This reduces the number of vendors, hardware requirements, and agents that need to be deployed in branch offices, remote locations, and end-user devices. This also cuts complexity and cost.

In addition, SASE allows enterprises to secure mobile and remote work with a single architecture that addresses a growing range of new threats without burdening IT teams with costly hardware upgrades. This also enables companies to scale their network and security services more efficiently to match fluctuating business demands.

Choosing a SASE provider with robust support mechanisms, including 24/7/365 live chat, email, and phone, is also essential. They should be able to provide a range of educational resources, demonstrations, and training programs to help IT teams understand and deploy SASE technologies. They should also support using a test environment to assess SASE performance and scalability before full-scale deployment.

SASE Architecture

Management

Bringing together networking and security functions into a single platform saves management time, integrates more effectively with existing and legacy systems, and improves performance for latency-sensitive apps. It also helps businesses save on hardware and operations costs and scale more quickly as their workforce grows and their business applications evolve.

Achieving the actual benefits of SASE requires a shift in internal structure as well. Many businesses still organize their network and security teams separately, but deploying or managing SASE is difficult while these teams remain siloed.

IT leaders must identify the business areas that most need to move to SASE and determine how their team is best suited to handle the transition. Then, they must select a vendor that supports those needs. Some vendors offer multivendor SASE (which stitches together networking and security solutions from various providers). In contrast, others specialize in specific functions, such as SD-WAN or zero trust network access.

For example, Versa Networks offers a single-vendor SASE solution with advanced capabilities such as centralized policy management and integrated AIOps to troubleshoot and automatically remediate. It also enables organizations to avoid single points of failure by ensuring that all networking and security functions are delivered at distributed points of presence close to end users. This is a crucial factor in reducing latency and preventing network congestion.