Is the future unified SASE?

Many organizations going through digital transformation are running into roadblocks as their networks become larger and more complex; with approximately 70 percent of companies failing to complete their digital transformation successfully.

The Secure Access Services Edge (SASE) framework has emerged as one of the most effective solutions for getting firms back on track. SASE solutions combine the Network as a Service (NaaS) component and Security as a Service (SaaS) component into a single cohesive solution.

SASE continuously connects and secures millions of access points in and out of the corporate resources from any location through the cloud. The model simplifies the convergence and adoption of many security and network point solutions that organizations have implemented to combat issues as their network scales up.

The SASE acronym was first coined by Gartner in 2019, and the framework quickly gained its importance in the market. Service providers came from two sub-segments -- Disaggregated SASE and Unified SASE.

In this crowded and fragmented market, many vendors chose to belong to the disaggregated category.  However, with the benefits of unified SASE, it might be time for enterprises to reconsider their choice of SASE framework.

Why is disaggregated SASE not the ideal solution?

Disaggregated SASE consists of separate networking and security products and services which have been integrated together to create a complete SASE solution. These services and products may come from the same or different vendors.

By having separate networking and security services, it results in multiple policy repositories, multiple software stacks, multiple management interfaces, and multiple sources of visibility and analytics -- creating challenges for security teams.

When security teams lack complete visibility across their entire network, it provides gaps which can be exploited by threat actors. Ultimately, increasing the risk of a cyber incident and one for which security teams are not ready for.

How does unified SASE differ?

Unified SASE provides a comprehensive and consolidated SASE solution within a single software stack. Networking and security services are provided by the same vendor, and a single policy repository is implemented which spans network and security policy.

It delivers unified security policies for all users irrespective of the device being used or the application being accessed. Security is embedded into the solution which results in no security breakage leading to better security hygiene, true access authenticity and only one point of decryption – ensuring that all corporate resources are protected.

By understanding the benefits that unified SASE provides, enterprises are able to make more informed decisions that will help their business during their digital transformation and ensures future resilience.

Benefits of a unified SASE approach

Unified SASE provides benefits to all parties within an organization -- the security team, employees and the business itself.

Through a single policy for both security and networking, security teams have one management console that allows them to define the required policies or gain complete visibility into their network. This provides a more granular approach to authentication and application/user access control, as well as allowing security teams to see all devices connected to the network. By having better visibility, organizations will be able to detect and respond to security events more effectively.

Integrating networking and security together not only benefits the security team, but other users as well. Unified SASE combines the networking benefits of SD-WAN (optimized network and application performance) and the security benefits of Security Services Edge (network visibility), resulting in an optimal user experience by utilizing the high-speed, low-latency and secure SASE backbone.

By design, unified SASE will have less components than a disaggregated SASE solution. Instead of having two management consoles, two logging services, two different gateway services and two different endpoint agents -- unified SASE only needs one of each. This automatically simplifies the architecture, which reduces the implementation time, cost and effort, and ultimately delivers a better ROI.

Thanks to unified SASE, organizations can change their outlook from a reactive one to a proactive one resulting in higher utilization and productivity of infrastructure and users.

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Sunil Ravi is Chief Security Architect at Versa Networks.