3 Changes driving SASE adoption worldwide

Cato Networks | Security
October 18, 2023

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In the rapidly evolving digital world, SASE (Secure Access Service Edge) represents a modern solution for the increasingly complex networking and security needs of businesses. The rise of cloud computing and the changing dynamics of society have shifted the path of digital traffic, with data increasingly being sent over the public internet rather than to organizations’ traditional data centers. This fundamental shift has created new and complex networking and security challenges that can no longer be effectively addressed with existing point solutions.

SASE represents a converged, cloud-based networking and security architecture specifically designed to meet the demands of modern businesses. It provides secure global WAN connections, ensures optimal cloud application performance, and provides flexible and secure access no matter where users are located.

Now let’s take a deeper look at three different changes and challenges driving SASE adoption worldwide.

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1. Branch of one

The rise of mobile devices and constant connectivity has enabled employees to be productive anytime, anywhere. This has turned individual employees into what we often call a ‘branch of one’, meaning they can operate as an independent unit. As remote working becomes more and more the norm in corporate culture, it is critical that IT and security teams find networking and security solutions to keep these ‘branches of one’ working seamlessly and securely, as if they were in the office. This is essential to ensure business continuity.

How SASE helps
SASE supports employees who can work from anywhere, with the same scalable, robust infrastructure and strict security protocols as those working on-site. It optimizes data transfer to every edge and continuously monitors network traffic to identify potential threats and maintain access control. This results in a uniform, fast, and secure network and application experience for all users, comparable to that in the office. This ensures that they can be just as productive, if not more productive than their colleagues present in the physical workplace.

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2. Instant access to internet branches

In addition to the rise of ‘Branchs of One’, traditional offices are also undergoing significant changes. The time when branches with hundreds of employees functioned as one coherent business unit is over. Today, each employee works as an autonomous unit, communicating globally and connecting to global cloud infrastructures, platforms and applications. This has transformed branches into collections of users that, in a sense, operate as ‘branches of one’.
IT and security play a crucial role in providing fast and optimized access to the public network and SaaS applications for all users, regardless of location or time

How SASE helps
SASE provides enterprises with SD-WAN capabilities for their last-mile connectivity and a global private backbone as a replacement for MPLS and the unpredictable public Internet. WAN optimizations and a managed backbone ensure high performance for applications running between branch offices and the cloud, all at a lower cost.

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3. Consolidating suppliers

With an abundance of specialized solutions and vendors to choose from, IT and security teams are challenged to determine which solution best suits their current and future needs. Once they’ve selected vendors, they have to deal with managing various “boxes” such as a secure web gateway, firewalls and remote web access, and so on. This can lead to significant overhead costs and complexity.

This process is time-intensive and can hinder the effectiveness of each individual solution. Furthermore, integrating these solutions, which were not originally designed to work together, can create cybersecurity weaknesses. This endangers both the security and operational stability of the organization.

How SASE helps
SASE simplifies management by providing one integrated solution for all current and future networking and security needs. With a single console for configuration, management and reporting, all network and security functions can be managed efficiently. This improves visibility, allows IT to perform optimizations and resolve issues, saves valuable time, and ensures that one uniform set of policies can be enforced across the entire network.

Conclusion

The global digital transformation has driven demand for flexible solutions that can provide both secure and high-performance global access. Nevertheless, IT and security teams are realizing that point solutions are not only inadequate to meet their needs, but also increase the complexity of networks.

These changes have led to the rise of SASE, which stands for Secure Access Service Edge, an approach that converges all networking and security functions into a single cloud service. This promotes the simplicity and flexibility that modern businesses need.

SASE allows IT and security teams to effortlessly adapt to the changing needs of their organization. They support the digital workforce in any location, providing optimized performance and advanced security that drives growth and ensures business continuity.

Click here if you want to learn more about SASE of Cato Networks.

Source: Cato Networks