Highlights:
- To enhance the WFA user experience and security, networking and security functions must integrate at the network edge and in the cloud.
- A secure access service edge (SASE) solution offers secure access to corporate applications, regardless of whether they are hosted on-premises or in the cloud.
As remote work is a new trend, companies struggle with protecting critical applications and data for their fragmented workforce. SASE offers a budding solution, combining secure access, robust authentication, and comprehensive protection in a single cloud-based platform.
Nevertheless, not all SASE solutions are created in the same way. Variations in application access, security features, and overall effectiveness can hide adoption for organizations controlling complex hybrid networks.
To increase the benefits of SASE, IT leaders must cautiously verify solutions based on specific use cases and critical capabilities.
This blog helps you evaluate critical capabilities while choosing the best SASE solution to protect your remote workforce.
Successful Managing Business in the Age of Work from Anywhere (WFA)
Hybrid work and the rapid adoption of cloud technologies have significantly increased cybersecurity risks, expanding the attack surface for cybercriminals. As employees work from various locations, traditional security measures like Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) struggle to keep pace with these evolving threats. These conventional solutions often fail to address vulnerabilities associated with personal devices and unsecured home networks.
To effectively mitigate risks, organizations must adopt advanced security architectures, such as SASE, ensuring they can balance flexibility with security in this new landscape.
Adopting a single-vendor SASE strategy
To streamline WFA user experience and security, networking and security functions must converge at the network edge and in the cloud.
SASE provides a unified approach by merging NaaS and SaaS capabilities into a single solution. While multi-vendor integrations can be intricate, a single-vendor SASE platform eases management and improves operational efficiency.
However, a comprehensive security strategy needs a SASE solution that easily integrates with current infrastructure to deliver continuous protection and performance across all environments.
The SASE market is full of SASE solution providers who commit quick fixes, but many of them lack. These solutions frequently depend on obsolete technology, operate in silos, and lack the integration capabilities to assist complex hybrid environments. This scattered approach aggravates IT complexity and leaves organizations vulnerable to newer threats.
To efficiently protect and control modern networks, businesses want a comprehensive SASE solution that eases operations and gives robust protection.
Choosing Your Solution: Best SASE Solution to Protect Your Remote Workforce
To protect remote workers and simplify IT management, companies should have a robust SASE solution in place.
Consider the essential features a SASE solution should have for your organization:
- A unified SASE solution
A single-vendor SASE approach provides streamlined management and improved security compared to multi-vendor solutions.
By combining networking and security functions under one platform, companies can ease operations, optimize performance, and employ consistent policies across their entire IT environment.
This comprehensive and unified approach empowers seamless user experience and strong zero-trust security, as connections and policies are managed consistently from cloud to on-premises locations.
- An integrated agent for various use cases
Deploying separate agents for each use case can quickly become overly complex and costly to maintain.
A strong SASE solution gives a single agent backing multiple use cases, such as zero-trust network access (ZTNA), cloud access security broker (CASB), and endpoint protection, while automatically redirecting traffic to protect assets and applications via cloud-delivered security.
- Secure internet access
The rise of remote work has stretched organizational attack surfaces due to improved direct internet access. Traditional VPNs are no longer enough.
Hence, a complete SASE solution is necessary to protect users and applications. By combining a secure web gateway with modern features like URL filtering, DNS security, and threat detection, companies can efficiently safeguard against web-based attacks and provide safe internet access for remote workers.
- Secure, adaptable private access
SASE solution provides secure access to corporate applications, whether hosted on-premises or in the cloud.
By integrating Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) with SD-WAN and next-generation firewall (NGFW) capabilities, users get intelligent traffic routing and robust security.
This empowers a smooth user experience and strong protection against threats. Unified agent eases management and strengthens complete security posture.
- Robust SaaS security for a mobile workforce
A strong SASE solution is critical to saving your enterprise’s critical data. It must provide secure access to SaaS applications from anywhere, whether it’s the home, office, or on the go.
By integrating advanced threat protection with granular control, SASE protects sensitive information from both external and internal threats.
Its principal features include:
- Real-time watch into SaaS usage
- Identification and mitigation of risky applications
- Safety against data loss and breaches
- All-inclusive malware prevention and remediation
- Agile consumption and a quick start
While considering a SASE solution, it’s necessary to think about more than just the technology; businesses should also verify the payment model. The ideal SASE solution should empower organizations to shift from capital expenditures to operating expenditures.
It should also furnish easy tiered licensing, enabling organizations to forecast costs linked to business growth and security usage without major investment in excess hardware.
Also, efficient ongoing cost management should be implemented, with easy onboarding and consolidated endpoint management systems.
Moreover, centralized management should also integrate efficient operations with detailed analytics, like pre-generated and on-demand reports, logging, and events across users, endpoints, and VPNs for streamlined troubleshooting.
- Efficient cloud-based management and visibility
A cloud-based SASE management system must offer detailed visibility, reporting, logging, and analytics to improve security operations and lessen detection and remediation times.
Controlling SASE security elements as separate point solutions can pressure security teams, especially in hybrid environments with fewer IT resources.
Finally, efficient integration with in-house security solutions ensures continuous policy enforcement. Also, digital experience monitoring (DEM) is crucial for proactive troubleshooting and end-to-end visibility. DEM gives unified insights into user experiences across applications, devices, and networks, translating these experiences into measurable business results.
- Flexible deployment for all configurations
A SASE solution should be adaptable to various organizational architectures and provide broad integration options with WLAN and LAN extenders. This flexibility backs the security of microbranches and related devices.
Also, it should provide a new approach to cloud-based security by widening enterprise-grade protections, such as sandboxing, intrusion prevention systems, and URL filtering, to microbranches without needing additional security appliances or services.
Summary
The rise in remote work is coming up with continuous challenges for security teams. A strong SASE solution is needed to protect a dispersed workforce.
By combining security and network features, SASE eases management, boosts protection, and gives seamless access to employees.
Finally, it empowers enterprises to focus on core business principles without neglecting security in intricate hybrid IT environments.
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