SASE supports the dynamic, secure access needs of today's hybrid organizations

Few widely-touted business innovations manage to exceed the first flush of market optimism they generate. Yet Secure Access Service Edge, better known as SASE, continues to deliver well beyond its initially high expectations.

As more enterprises begin to embrace this new cloud-delivered security service that extends in-depth security beyond SD-WAN and traditional firewalls to remote users and devices, a question being asked across the market is this: Just what kind of SASE uptake will work best for me?

What services make up SASE – and why they matter to you

The acronym SASE was coined by Gartner^® in 2019 when the bundled service offering was just beginning to emerge. Right out of the gate, the concept had enormous appeal; its core functionality of traditionally separated services covers two essential concerns of today’s cloud-focused enterprise:

• Security: Services here include SWG (secure web gateway), CASB (cloud access security broker) and multi-factor authentication via ZTNA (zero trust network access)
• Networking: Services here include SD-WAN (software-defined wide area network) and FWaaS (firewall as a service, which also enhances security)

SASE quickly made its way to the front of minds concurrent with a trio of sweeping developments in the business world: the greater use of cloud technology and the need to manage that through networking, increased security risk as enterprises expand their network perimeters and the steep rise in remote workers in recent years.

The actual product itself is not yet clearly defined, as different vendors are introducing different offerings to market as their “SASE” solutions, some of which are more robust than others. No extant all-in-one solution is agreed upon, but as different components become more common in SASE-styled bundles, broad use of SASE-styled offerings is quickly becoming a reality.

Gartner sees a robust SASE market growth over the next four years at a compound annual growth rate of 32%, reaching almost $15 billion by 2025.¹

How SASE is exceeding expectations

In a 2022 Gartner CIO and Technology Executive Survey, SASE was the third most commonly cited technology investment (deployed or planning to deploy within 12 months) after artificial intelligence/machine learning and distributed cloud, respectively, providing further evidence that momentum around SASE is growing among enterprise buyers.

While SASE adopters list a multitude of reasons behind their uptake, security is cited quite often. Distributed workforces and the increased threat of cyberfraud on data-rich enterprises make ZTNA (for ingress) and SWG and CASB (for egress) important criteria.

Gartner notes, “There are now more users, devices, applications, services and data located outside of an enterprise perimeter than inside.”²

But simplicity and flexibility may be more powerful adoption drivers. SASE offers users a broad architecture managed via a single-pane-of-glass control point. The 2022 Gartner Market Guide for Single-Vendor SASE reports that by 2025, 50 percent of new SD-WAN purchases will be part of a single-vendor SASE offering, up from ten percent in 2022.

While ROI will vary depending on the enterprise, one clear gain comes by giving IT directors the ability to transfer resources from security hardware and software into scalable, cloud-based solutions. Productivity, efficiency and avoiding unnecessary costs are just some of the ancillary benefits of SASE take-up.

What is still to come – and what to avoid

The growth in SASE will inevitably spread to middle-market enterprises and smaller organizations as SASE’s attraction and its current swift uptake by larger enterprises become harder to ignore. Sectors expected to have the most pressing need for SASE include financial, healthcare, retail and both state and local governments.

For some forward-thinking enterprises, uptake may be immediate and all-encompassing, while other users dip their toes in with one or two SASE services and expand outward and inward as they feel comfortable. Both a holistic and a piecemeal approach have their benefits and drawbacks, but seizing the initiative in some way is critical for gaining market advantage.

To be successful, SASE customers must minimize the number of vendors they employ. Only in this way can they optimize the security and networking capabilities inherent in SASE. Too many service providers can clutter oversight functionality and affect timing. Gartner recommends contracting either a single vendor, two explicitly partnered vendors or a managed SASE offering.³

Legacy architecture and rapidly outmoded functionality like VPN should be retired in a way that best makes sense for the enterprise, its workers and customers. With the help of a managed service provider, SASE solutions can be tailored to do this in a way that minimizes cost and strain.

As SASE grows, more functionalities will no doubt be added. A savvy SASE customer will make room for more building blocks that fill key roles within the enterprise, thus increasing the usefulness, flexibility and expandability of their SASE strategy.

Looking ahead

According to Gartner, by 2025, 80% of enterprises will have adopted a strategy to unify web, cloud services and private application access using either or both a SASE or Security Service Edge (SSE) architecture, up from 20% last year.⁴

With that in mind, now is the time to focus your enterprise on what SASE can do for you. Learn how to exceed your business goals today and tomorrow with Spectrum Enterprise solutions.

1. Gartner, 2022 Strategic Roadmap for SASE Convergence, June 24, 2022
2. Ibid.
3. Gartner 2022 Strategic Roadmap for SASE Convergence, June 24, 2022
   
4. Ibid.

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