By Shira Landau, Editor-in-Chief, CyberTalk.org
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:
The Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) framework emerged in 2019, as industry analysts observed new use cases and buying patterns within digital transformations. SASE moves security closer to the end user, supporting organizations’ dynamic secure access needs.
In terms of connectivity and security, SASE represents a paradigm shift. The shift emerges from a fundamental reimagining of how organizations create, manage and safeguard infrastructure and resources. In the work-from-anywhere world, SASE enables all organizations to leverage Firewall-as-a-Service, secure web gateway, zero trust network access and other critical security functions.
SASE consolidates SD-WAN, enabling organizations to safely expand an edge that now includes divergent work habits, branch offices, public clouds and IoT networks.
SASE benefits
In the past, connectivity and security were commonly perceived as separate entities. Each was addressed via distinct approaches, solutions and strategies. However, SASE upends this and unites different technologies under one umbrella to create a more cohesive environment, where protection is intrinsic to every connection.
Developing a clearer understanding of SASE’s benefits will enable organizations to make informed decisions that increase operational efficiency, enhance a cyber security posture, support overall business agility, and advance competitiveness in the marketplace. If you’re considering SASE adoption and implementation, you should know about these specific SASE benefits:
10 SASE benefits that you should be aware of
1. Consistent policy. A SASE architecture applies consistent policy enforcement, nearly guaranteeing a reliable and cohesive security approach that spans all network edges. Admins can set policies centrally via cloud-based management platforms. Policies are then enforced at distributed points-of-presence, close to end-users. Consistent policy enforcement enhances threat mitigation, serving to reinforce an organization’s overall cyber security posture.
2. Secure remote/mobile access. SASE improves remote and mobile access by providing secure, direct and optimized connections to corporate resources and applications while maintaining a consistent security posture across locations and connection types. Through the convergence of security and networking functions in a cloud-native architecture, SASE redefines standards around connectivity and protection.
3. Least-privilege access. SASE supports the principle of least-privileged access, accomplishing this through its integrated cloud-native architecture and zero-trust framework. SASE can apply contextual access policies, taking an access-requester’s location, time of day, and more into account.
SASE’s least-privilege access capabilities enable organizations to reduce risk, enhance data protection and enhance their overall cyber security posture – not bad, in terms of SASE benefits.
4. Centralized orchestration. SASE offers single-pane-of-glass management for network and security as a single solution. SASE also provides end-to-end visibility and analytics, showing all users, devices, applications and resources in a location and connection-agnostic way, making management more manageable.
5. Complexity reduction. With SASE, your organization can eliminate backhauled traffic flows; optimizing client-to-cloud delays, reducing transport costs, and streamlining the operations of communication networks.
In addition, SASE merges single-point security solutions into a single cloud-based service, minimizing the quantity of technology that needs to be supervised, and making it so that enterprises can interact with fewer vendors (and lose less time to the configuration of infrastructure).
6. IT/security staff efficiency. SASE’s consolidation of management tasks, automation, streamlined analytics and scalability enable IT staff to decrease time spent on menial tasks and to spend more time on value-driven activities. At the end of the day, this enhances the overall effectiveness of an organization’s technology departments. If these SASE benefits aren’t good enough, we don’t know what is.
7. Business enablement. SASE is software-based and cloud delivered, meaning that it easily integrates into existing environments. SASE applies secure access regardless of users’ locations, workloads, devices, applications or data. In turn, SASE enables secure ‘work from anywhere,’ efficient SaaS adoption, and flexible multi-cloud environments. It offers a master-class in helping people get more done, faster.
8. Dynamic adaptability. SASE’s agile structure enables dynamic adaptation to evolving conditions and circumstances. It accommodates an array of network scenarios, seamlessly adjusting policies and controls based on real-time user, device and environmental factors. Such adaptability means that the security will continue to safeguard the organization, even as the IT landscape continues to change.
9. Global scalability. SASE’s cloud-native foundation enables organizations to scale capabilities on a global level. This type of scalability is essential when it comes to accommodating growth or sudden changes on-demand. It allows for the expansion of user bases without compromising performance or security.
10. Threat prevention and risk reduction. SASE’s comprehensive security elements, including application cloaking, segmentation and inline encryption, help protect an organization against the most deceitful of threats. Further, SASE’s risk assessment capabilities allow for proactive recognition of and mitigation of potential vulnerabilities, shrinking the attack surface and lowering risk exposure levels.
SASE benefits: More info
These are not the only SASE benefits, but simply offer a glimpse into SASE capabilities. SASE offers advantages when it comes to compliance, the cloud and cost-savings. Nonetheless, a brief, cursory overview of SASE benefits, as above, empowers leaders to implement an up-to-date, secure and robust cyber security strategy.
For more SASE benefits insights, please see CyberTalk.org’s past coverage. Lastly, to receive more timely cyber security news, insights and cutting-edge analyses, please sign up for the cybertalk.org newsletter.
