Is Your Business Ready for SASE?

As companies adopt more cloud applications and support a remote workforce, traditional network security architectures are being pushed to their limits. Employees need reliable access to business apps in headquarters, a cafe, or their home office. However, backhauling traffic through centralized data centers for security inspection introduces latency, connectivity issues, and performance bottlenecks.
There is clearly a growing need for a more agile framework that connects distributed users to cloud environments without impacting productivity. This is where SASE comes in.

What Does SASE Do?

SASE, or Secure Access Service Edge, converges your network and security infrastructure into a cloud-native model. Instead of managing different security and networking devices at each of your locations, SASE handles everything from globally distributed points of presence (PoPs).
A SASE platform essentially functions as a globally elastic cloud security stack accessible from everywhere. The various components delivered from the cloud can include:

1. SD-WAN - Define network topology and policies centrally and implement them across all sites. Get visibility into global application performance as traffic routes between branches, data centers, and the cloud.
    
2. SWG - Protect distributed internet breakouts with inline malware scanning, web filtering, and data loss prevention. Content is inspected locally in regional PoPs.
    
3. ZTNA - Only allow application access after verifying user, device, and location context using zero trust principles. Removes reliance on VPNs.
    
4. CASB - Discover shadow IT like unsanctioned cloud apps. Enforce DLP policies on cloud data. Detect threats and anomalies in IaaS environments.
    
5. Next-gen firewall: Protect all sites with advanced intrusion prevention, IP reputation intelligence, and sandbox malware analysis.

Instead of hair pinning traffic to headquarters before reaching the cloud, SASE allows direct local breakouts to optimize SaaS application access. Security scanning still happens but takes place locally in points of presence closest to users for faster performance. When considering how to choose a SASE vendor, it's essential to evaluate their ability to deliver these core components effectively.

Why Should Businesses Care About SASE?

There are several compelling reasons SASE stands to benefit organizations:

Simplifies Security Stack

Businesses often secure remote users with a VPN appliance that backhauls traffic to centralized security stacks at each location. If the VPN goes down, remote sites experience degraded performance or availability.
SASE eliminates the need for local VPN infrastructure. Users connect to the nearest SASE PoP, providing network connectivity and inline security scanning. This reduces latency while improving reliability.
Fewer security appliances to deploy also means less complexity. Managing one SASE platform through a single dashboard is far easier than managing individual VPN concentrators, firewalls, proxies, etc.

Accommodates Cloud Workflows

Traditional hub-and-spoke security models backhaul internet traffic through centralized data centers. However, as apps and services shift to the cloud, this often forces inefficient traffic hairpinning.
SASE allows direct local breakout to SaaS apps and cloud environments. Traffic routes from the branch to the cloud optimally instead of trombone through headquarters first.

Adapts to Edge Computing

Organizations are also increasingly deploying IoT devices, servers, and infrastructure at remote locations to enable edge computing use cases.
Again, backhauling traffic from distributed endpoints to a central location for security scanning delays access and hampers performance. SASE instead secures localized traffic right at the edge before entering the LAN.
This allows you to deploy devices anywhere while maintaining consistent security, compliance, and controls. Hybrid cloud environments with distributed connectivity demands are perfect candidates for SASE.

Assessing Readiness for SASE

Hopefully, you now understand what SASE is and the growing need for this new model. But how do you know if your business is ready to adopt SASE? Here are key considerations around infrastructure, architecture, and processes to help determine readiness:

Have SD-WAN in Place

SD-WAN serves as the ideal springboard for SASE adoption. If you already have centralized orchestration and automation of network policies in place, adding cloud-based security on top is straightforward.

Assess Application Dependency

Compile an inventory of business-critical SaaS apps, IaaS environments, and cloud-based services. These directly accessed cloud apps stand to benefit the most from SASE implementation.

Standardize Security Policy

You first need consistent policies across networks, users, devices, and environments for consistent enforcement. Document common security, compliance, and access rules so they can be implemented globally.

Evaluate Network Architecture

Multi- or hybrid-cloud connectivity with distributed branches and edge sites suits SASE environments. Start planning for local internet breakouts to avoid excessive backhauling of cloud traffic.

Examine Skills And Support

Consider working with a managed service provider for SASE platforms. The model minimizes the need for specialist skills like CASB configuration while leveraging vendor SLAs and support.

Choosing a SASE Vendor That's Right for Your Business Needs

With the fundamentals of SASE now understood, one of the most critical decisions is choosing the right vendor for your environment and use cases. But with new providers constantly entering this market, how do you approach vendor selection? Here are critical criteria to assess when evaluating SASE solutions:

Robust Zero Trust Network Access

Make sure the vendor has strong identity and access management capabilities to enable secure remote access. You specifically want to look for contextual policies and adaptive controls that verify user identities and validate device posture and security before granting network access. This ensures that only trusted devices and users can access applications and data.

Integrated Cloud Security Services

Opt for platforms that deliver critical security services like cloud access security brokers, secure web gateways, malware filtering, and data loss prevention that are tightly integrated into a single cloud platform. This consolidation enhances security efficacy through unified data and threat intelligence that connects insights across all modules. Disjointed third-party bolt-ons tend to have gaps.

Optimized for High Cloud Performance

Validate that the vendor leverages advanced traffic steering, workload balancing, and redundancy mechanisms for fast and reliable access to web applications and cloud environments. This maintains employee productivity without needing to backhaul traffic unnecessarily to centralized hubs. The goal is to ensure security without compromising experience.

Unified Management Experience

Converging networking and security reduces operational complexity. So, prioritize solutions that offer centralized orchestration, monitoring, and analytics across both functions from a single intuitive interface rather than separate dashboards. This makes it easier for already lean IT teams to manage.

AI-powered Threat Prevention

Look for advanced machine learning techniques that perform a real-time inspection of the web, cloud app, and network traffic content to detect both known and zero-day threats. Leveraging collective threat intelligence from global sources is also crucial to adding a layer of proactive protection on top of signature-based detection.

Streamlined Regulatory Compliance

Out-of-the-box templates, adjustable controls, and automated policy triggers are available for HIPAA, PCI DSS, and GDPR regulations. This significantly simplifies meeting compliance burdens as your business adapts to the evolving threat landscape.

Final Thoughts

Legacy security approaches can't keep up as the workforce and applications rapidly migrate to a distributed model. Backhauling traffic to centralized stacks leads to bandwidth congestion, latency, and reliability issues.

SASE provides a crucial architectural shift to keep pace. Instead of manually connecting remote sites to centralized security, everything converges in a cloud-native global fabric. Performance improves since traffic breaks out directly from branches to cloud apps instead of routing through corporate data centers first. Reliability also increases, given the extensive redundancy of global points of presence. With careful evaluation of existing infrastructure and future needs, you can create a transition plan tailored to your environment.