Securing a distributed modern enterprise is no easy task. Between remote workers, cloud adoption, web apps, and increasing threats, the number of security products to manage has exploded. Juggling firewalls, proxies, VPNs, cloud access brokers, and more across locations has become operationally complex and incredibly costly. There has to be a better way.

Well, there is. It’s called SASE.

It represents an emerging approach that finally helps reconcile networking and security for the work-from-anywhere business we now operate in. Gone are the days of isolated products. In this blog, we will cover what SASE is, why companies need it, what must-have capabilities to look for, implementation benefits and challenges, and, most importantly, how to choose a SASE vendor for YOUR needs.

What Is SASE Exactly?

SASE stands for “Secure Access Service Edge.” It refers to a cloud-native security framework that converges networking and network security into a unified solution. Rather than having distinct products for SD-WAN, firewalls, and more, SASE packages them together.

This consolidated approach allows security to be intrinsically baked into the network itself. Policies and controls are integrated across devices, from campus to branch to cloud. The result is a seamless, unified way to manage access and security across modern distributed enterprises.

Why the Sudden Shift to SASE?

Powering the rise of SASE are both technology and cultural changes:

●       Work from anywhere workforce – Between remote work becoming mainstream and businesses needing to support an increasingly mobile workforce, network edges have evaporated. Security needs to map policy to users and devices without a clear enterprise perimeter, not just physical sites. SASE follows the user no matter where they go.

●       Cloud adoption – As more infrastructure, apps, and services shift into the cloud, security needs to follow. Trying to backhaul cloud traffic through traditional data center security stacks creates performance, availability, and scale issues. SASE secures this traffic locally in points of presence close to users.

●       Fragmented security market – Between firewalls, VPNs, cloud security brokerages, and more, the number of disjointed security vendors to manage has exploded. Businesses are looking to consolidate vendors and products to simplify operations.

These factors and others have necessitated an architectural change in how networks and security solutions are delivered. SASE aims to address these modern challenges.

Key Capabilities of SASE Solutions

While definitions are still evolving, most agree on several core capabilities:

Unified Networking and Security

As mentioned above, SASE converges SD-WAN, firewalls, secure web gateways, cloud access security brokers, and more into one cloud-native service. Policies use identity context and are unified across form factors.

Delivered from the Cloud

Rather than appliances on-premises, SASE is delivered across a globally distributed network of points of presence. This brings security closer to users for better performance. The cloud delivery model also enables elastic scale and continuous updates.

Zero Trust Network Access

SASE aligns with the zero-trust principles of least privilege and identity/context-based access controls. User verification and device security posture checks determine authorization for applications and resources.

Secure Web Gateway Functions

No matter what web destination a user connects to, web traffic is secured against threats and sensitive data loss via an inline proxy with CASB-like controls. Malware blocking, URL filtering, DLP, and more are implemented here.

Cloud Integration and Visibility

In addition to securing web traffic, SASE solutions connect directly to cloud providers via API for discovery, analytics, configuration control, threat detection, and compliance monitoring. This covers sanctions, regulations, and guidelines like GDPR across cloud environments.

What are the Benefits of SASE?

Taking a SASE approach offers organizations several advantages:

Better security – Unifying networking, security services, threat intelligence, and more into one natively integrated stack with centralized policy and control reduces gaps and risks.

Improved user experience—Enabling direct, secure access from user locations minimizes backhauling and latency issues, improving performance and reliability.

Operational simplicity – Converging solutions onto a single cloud-native platform reduces complexity. Policy configurations, licensing, reporting, and troubleshooting are simplified via a single console.

Cost savings – Eliminating disjointed security products and WAN mechanisms in favor of an integrated SASE architecture reduces Capex and Opex over time by optimizing infrastructure and vendor sprawl.

Adaptability at scale—Cloud-native SASE solutions seamlessly scale capacity up and down dynamically based on usage needs across locations. New capabilities are continuously added, and enhancements happen without requiring upgrades.

What to Look for When Choosing a SASE Vendor

SASE platforms all aim to meet the fundamental convergence criteria above. However, providers can still be considerable variability regarding scope, capabilities, delivery models, and overall maturity. Make sure to evaluate vendors thoroughly across these aspects:

Functional completeness

Assess if the vendor offers a full suite of essential SASE components—things like SD-WAN, SWG, ZTNA, FWaaS, CASB, DNS filtering, sandboxing, DLP, and more. Look for robust feature sets per function rather than separate products duct-taped together.

Deployment flexibility

See if the SASE offering supports flexible deployment options to match your needs – global cloud, private cloud, on-premises, and hybrid models. Can the vendor deploy services adjacent to public cloud providers? Avoid lock-in.

Ease of use

Using a complex security framework should be simple on a day-to-day basis. Evaluate the quality of policy configurations, monitoring capabilities, investigation features, templating/reuse mechanisms, and general UI/UX. The better, the less friction and the fewer consoles.

Performance and reliability

Assess network footprint density, service uptime history, QoS capabilities, business continuity features, and service architecture resiliency. Banking on cost savings is pointless if performance issues arise from congestion or outages.

Interoperability

Given the likelihood that you have some existing solutions, make sure the SASE platform can integrate and orchestrate with them rather than force a wholesale rip-and-replace. This will protect existing investments.

Roadmap and vision

The SASE market is still evolving quickly. Ensure any vendor provides a detailed, realistic product roadmap showing how they will deliver missing capabilities in reasonable timeframes. Ask about their long-term cloud security vision to see if it aligns with your objectives.

Final Word

While the SASE journey can seem daunting, the long-term benefits are too substantial to ignore. Just make sure you take time to thoroughly evaluate provider options rather than risk getting locked into a restrictive platform. Look for one that delivers complete functionality with deployment flexibility, ease of use, robust performance, seamless integrations, and a commitment to continuous security innovation.

With the proper SASE foundation in place, you can transform connectivity, end-user experience, operations, and risk today and as needs evolve across your organization.