SASE (Secure Access Edge Services) will be at the core of the digital transformation strategies of 40% of organizations by 2024. The technology serves as a unified networking and security solution- featuring zero trust network access and SD-WAN at its core. Rupesh Chokshi, the Vice President of Cybersecurity at AT&T, talks about the core benefits offered by SASE solutions, how they differ from traditional SD-WAN solutions, and why SASE will become a key pillar of digital transformation in the coming years.
Table of Contents
What is SASE
Secure Access Edge Services (SASE), pronounced as “Sassy,†is quickly becoming an enabler for digital transformation, thanks to its as-a-service nature that combines the networking prowess of SD-WAN with advanced security controls, such as zero trust. SASE is a flexible approach that caters to distributed networking, and organizations can choose custom solutions based on how distributed their networks are or how many endpoints they need to secure.
According to Andrew Lerner, research vice president for Networking at Gartner, SASEOpens a new window is a “new package of technologies including SD-WAN, SWG (Secure Web Gateway), CASB (Cloud Access Security Broker), ZTNA (Zero Trust Networking Access), and FWaaS (Firewall as a Service) as core abilities, with the ability to identify sensitive data or malware and the ability to decrypt content at line speed, with continuous monitoring of sessions for risk and trust levels.â€
Gartner’s 2020 Market Guide for Zero Trust Network Access states that with the rise of work-from-anywhere policies worldwide, organizations need to secure uninterrupted access for their employees across all locations and SASE promises to deliver consistent security and connectivity while replacing traditional VPN solutions with zero trust security to protect both online identities and enterprise data.
Learn More: Transforming Network Security With SASE: Hype or Hope?Â
Why SASE and Why Not SD-WAN?
Organizations that are looking to expand to new geographical locations, develop a bunch of new applications to enhance customer experience, or expand their product lines, will eventually have a large number of endpoints and applications at the edge to run. This will require the use of public and private clouds, enormous computing resources, and high-speed networking capabilities. Software-Defined Wide Area Network (SD-WAN), which grew out of SDN in the early 2010s, fulfills the latter requirement.
As massive data breaches suffered by well-known enterprises in recent times have shown, merely having potent networking capabilities is not enough to maintain business continuity; the ability to secure endpoints, applications, storage devices, and systems from cyberattacks is equally important. This is where SASE comes in. The ability to offer both networking and network security as a package enables the solution to fill the gaping void enterprises have been failing to plug in recent years.
Rupesh ChokshiOpens a new window , the vice president of AT&T Cybersecurity, says that the company’s Managed SASE solution, developed in a partnership with Fortinet, combines SD-WAN, security, and fiber connectivity to fulfill the need for convergence organizations are looking for. Organizations want to do application-oriented networking and have visibility over endpoints, have MFA and zero trust in place, and deliver optimal experiences to end-users at the same time. Thanks to the arrival of SASE, the adoption, the evolution, and the disruption is starting to come into play.
 Rupesh Chokshi, AT&T Cybersecurity VP, talks about the benefits of SASE
Is SD-WAN Dead?
SD-WAN solutions continue to garner massive adoption worldwide as the technology fulfills three main aspects of digital transformation: application awareness, visualization or centralized orchestration of a network and its branches, and bringing together multiple circuits, such as wired and wireless technologies, under a single platform. These capabilities enable organizations in the retail, banking, and healthcare sectors to manage multiple applications, scale operations, and ensure visibility over wide area networks.
According to Chokshi, with so much networking taking place over Internet connections, the role of network security also became more important as endpoints had to be protected. There was a need for a solution to secure endpoints and data, more so after the COVID-19 pandemic led to a highly distributed workforce, with each worker using their own devices and routers to connect to enterprise networks. These factors pushed SASE into the limelight.
SASE brings a blended architectural framework that organizations need to merge SD-WAN technologies with security to become a robust, scalable solution. SASE has also enabled zero trust network access as it keeps security at the core of its design.
Even though SASE will garner impressive adoption in the next few years, SD-WAN will continue to be relied upon because of the wide-area networking capabilities it offers to organizations across all sectors. SD-WAN cannot provide robust security controls on its own the way SASE does but will continue to undergo development and transformation as a component of future SASE solutions.
Learn More: Can SASE Edge Out VPNs for Secure Remote Access?Â
Whose Responsibility Is It? Â
SASE brings together advanced networking capabilities of SD-WAN along with advanced security solutions such as zero trust, SGA, CASB, and Firewall as a Service as part of a unified subscription model. This often leads organizations to wonder if they should place SASE under the supervision of the Security Operations Center or the Network Operations Center.
According to Chokshi, AT&T is solving this conundrum by bringing together expertise and knowledge of both Layer 3 Networking and deep security concepts to make the use of managed SASE a very effortless and seamless task for organizations. The objective is to provide the solution to organizations in a way that they can manage it using a single glass pane. This helps them identify security issues or networking issues quickly, and vendors leverage their product expertise to solve these problems in quick time.Â
What’s In Store for the Future?
According to Gartner, SASE is among the key pillars of confidential computing. This concept ensures that even if it is stored on a public cloud platform, enterprise data is invisible to third parties, including the host, thereby preserving the data’s integrity and security. This aspect removes the last major hurdle to the universal adoption of cloud computing as banks, healthcare organizations, and government agencies can also place their data on the cloud without worrying about third-party access controls.
SASE is a truly transformational technology as it serves SD-WAN capabilities and zero trust network access as part of the same offering. This helps organizations scale their operations even if their workers are operating from remote locations and get rid of legacy VPN solutions, most of which are not equipped to deal with modern cyber threats. The fact that 40% of organizations will have explicit strategies to adopt SASE by 2024, compared to less than 1% in 2018, demonstrates how sorely organizations were searching for a solution to solve their networking and security challenges at the same time.Â
Learn More: Simplifying Distributed Networks’ Security With SD-WAN, NaaS, and SASE
The Bottomline
Even though organizations across sectors are taking note of the benefits offered by SASE and vendors are actively marketing it, Gartner states that the technology is still in the early stagesOpens a new window of market development. Like every other technology, SASE will undoubtedly undergo major transformation in the coming years, considering the likes of AT&T, Zscaler, Fortinet, NetSkope, Perimeter, and Cato Networks are already fully invested in it.  Â
In the coming years, you should expect SASE solutions to be more cost-competitive and offering unsurpassed scalability, cost-effectiveness, and visibility. The arrival of 5G, further developments in SD-WAN technology, the gradual adoption of NetOps 2.0 as the default networking approach, and a global shift to work-from-anywhere will further boost SASE developments in the coming years.
Do you think a SASE solution will enable your organization to manage networking and security processes more efficiently than existing solutions? Comment below or let us know on LinkedInOpens a new window , TwitterOpens a new window , or FacebookOpens a new window . We would love to hear from you!Â