Organizations Don’t Need a Cloud-Native Network to Adopt SASE
Key Highlights
- SASE enables organizations to strengthen remote connectivity and zero-trust security without replacing existing network infrastructure.
- Legacy IT environments can still support modern access and security strategies as users and applications become increasingly distributed.
- Successful SASE adoption requires careful planning around identity management, access policies and ongoing monitoring.
In a perfect world, every business would design its network from day one with the need for scalability, connectivity from anywhere and zero-trust security in mind.
In the real world, of course, few organizations have this luxury. Most have entrenched technology investments in place, and overhauling them to conform with modern network access and security paradigms isn’t always feasible.
Fortunately, however, it’s not necessary to modify legacy networks or application portfolios to meet today’s needs. Instead, by taking advantage of a type of solution called Secure Access Service Edge (SASE), it’s possible to bring modern connectivity and security to legacy networks.
Here’s a look at what SASE does, how it works and why it’s so vital for organizations seeking to move beyond legacy networking and security practices without rebuilding their actual infrastructure.
What is SASE?
SASE is a type of solution that combines network connectivity and routing capabilities with zero-trust security.
The purpose of SASE is to deliver, via a single platform, a way for enterprises to implement reliable, security connectivity across all of their users and endpoints, no matter where they are located.
Why SASE, and why now?
From the perspective of network connectivity and security, SASE is a game-changer because it’s a way for businesses to enforce high security standards without requiring users or endpoints to be located in a specific location.
In the past, the primary way to protect assets from network-borne attacks was to isolate them from public networks using solutions like VPNs. Those worked well in the era when users, servers and applications all resided on the same local network, and could be neatly segmented from the wilds of the Internet using a VPN.
Today, however, users can, and do, connect from anywhere. Applications can also be hosted anywhere, not just because many enterprise apps now live on cloud servers based in remote data centers, but also because third-party SaaS applications account for a major portion of modern enterprise software portfolios.
In this environment, it has become critical to ensure that users can access what they need, no matter where it’s located, while also preventing unauthorized access. This is precisely what SASE does.
Meeting networks where they are
The value of SASE isn’t limited just to providing connectivity and security on networks that lack fixed perimeters. It’s also the fact that SASE works with the infrastructure businesses already have in place.
In this sense, SASE is fundamentally different from other disruptive technologies, like the cloud or containers. Taking advantage of those innovations required businesses to make major changes to their IT architectures, personnel and processes.
SASE, by contrast, can connect and protect virtually any IT estate, no matter how it’s configured. You don’t need to be using any particular type of networking technology or design, or be invested in a specific vendor ecosystem, to take advantage of SASE. The SASE paradigm meets businesses where they are.
Getting started with SASE
This isn’t to say that SASE solutions are simple to deploy and manage. Like any powerful technology, they are complex, and leveraging them effectively requires conquering challenges such as:
- Selecting the right SASE platform from the growing array of options.
- Integrating the SASE solution with identity management systems so that users can receive role-appropriate network access rights.
- Configuring policies that define which levels of access users should receive.
- Monitoring for anomalous access events, which could be signs of malicious activity.
- Keeping user databases and policies updated over time as connectivity and security needs change.
Addressing these challenges requires a detailed plan that describes what a business needs its SASE solution to do, as well as the ability to deploy, configure and manage the SASE platform accordingly. For this reason, organizations should approach SASE adoption with a well-defined strategy, just as they would when adopting other transformative technologies. They must also ensure that they have personnel resources available for implementing their SASE strategy.
These investments are significant, but they yield major dividends by bringing modern network access and security controls to legacy networks and IT estates. Hence why now is the time for businesses of all types, not just those with the luxury of operating fully modern, cloud-native environments, to dispense with legacy approaches to network operations and, in their place, leverage SASE.
About the Author
Anthony Lobretto
SVP of Connectivity Services at 11:11 Systems
Anthony Lobretto is SVP of Connectivity Services at 11:11 Systems.