SASE and the Future of Modern Enterprise Networking and Security

Reginald Greyling, Network Security Architect at NEC XON

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A recent survey of CFOs in 2023 revealed that 80% plan to maintain or increase their digital investments. Innovations in networking, AI, and cloud technology are driving an increasingly digital future. Thanks to these advancements, information and services are more accessible than ever before, regardless of location. However, with this progress come significant business networking and security challenges. Below, we share key insights to help businesses address these challenges by embracing a new approach to enterprise networking and security.

Traditional solutions create traditional challenges
Traditionally, businesses connect remote users and locations to the corporate network by routing all traffic through the data centre or headquarters. This method creates bottlenecks, resulting in increased latency and reduced performance due to the multiple agent software required to secure endpoints.
Ideally, data centres should be positioned as close to the user or business location as possible. However, this approach demands extensive and redundant infrastructure, requiring constant management and maintenance—a significant challenge for most businesses today. These businesses often rely on outdated, static, and rigid networks, making scaling a lengthy and risky process. Additionally, with the network perimeter extending to endpoints, maintaining security becomes a daunting and time-consuming task, often compromising the end-user experience.

So What’s the Solution?
Imagine a world where businesses only need to manage services, not infrastructure. For network and security engineers, this sounds like a dream, allowing them to finally get some rest. The good news is that this world is here, and it’s called SASE (Secure Access Service Edge).

SASE is essentially networking and security as a service. It eliminates the need to build expensive racks and complex traffic routing. SASE vendors possess a deep understanding of their products, driving innovation in scaling infrastructure and integrating products into public and private clouds, IoT, and OT. These innovations transform day-to-day operations by providing automation and actionable insights into key network and security metrics, enabling IT staff to adopt a proactive approach rather than a reactive one.

Some SASE vendors have even advanced beyond traditional Access Broker-based Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA), which relies on "security by obscurity" and an "allow and ignore" model. Instead of verifying access only once, these vendors perform continuous trust verification on the user, their device, and the application they are accessing. They also conduct continuous and consistent security inspection and data protection on traffic, ensuring that malicious activity, malware, and phishing attempts are stopped immediately.
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SASE represents the network and security of tomorrow. It allows businesses to embrace digital transformation effortlessly, eliminating concerns about scaling and securing networks and infrastructure. With SASE, businesses can keep their workforce connected to the new apps and services - driving growth with peace of mind.