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The top security challenges that organizations are facing today are

1. Users are connecting from anywhere and from multiple devices.
2. The data is stored across multiple locations including diverse cloud services.
3. Most of the applications are living outside the private data centers.
4. Higher CAPEX due to cost associated with Heavy appliances
5. Managing multiple loosely coupled point products for networking, security, logging and monitoring using different management consoles.
It is obvious that the network perimeter is dissolving and the internet is becoming the preferred network backbone. Today companies are using products from different vendors for their networking, security and monitoring requirements. These networking and security controls are equipped with their own security management system, each of which comes with its own configuration and interoperability challenges. These challenges can produce visibility gaps. So there is definitely a need for a unique network and security architecture that is capable of providing secure, reliable and centrally controlled connectivity between everything and everyone connected to the internet.

Further, most organizations are backhauling traffic to the data center through their security stack in current on-premises environments. That data might have to travel around the world to reach the inspection point within the data center. There is definitely a need for an approach where the data no longer has to travel around the world before the user gains access.

In 2019, Gartner coined the term Secure Access Service Edge, better known as SASE. SASE is an architectural shift that puts networking converged with security and provides protection from attack, regardless of where users are located. SASE is an architectural shift in how networking and security technologies are implemented. SASE delivers networking and security together as one cohesive service and addresses network and security management challenges for organizations using single dashboard.

A SASE platform has a global network that is ready to serve users wherever they are. It has multiple services which include SDWAN, NGFW, Secure Web Gateways (SWGs), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASBs), Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA), DNS Security, CSPM and CWPP.

The importance and need of SASE adoption can be highlighted with the strengths mentioned below

• It offers software defined services for network and security with a single management console.
• It enables direct access to cloud applications without routing through the data center, which reduces latency and load on corporate resources.
• It offers an edge based security model that puts cyber security services closer to the assets they’re protecting.