Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) from LevelBlue

The term ‘secure access service edge’ was coined in 2019 by a pair of analysts working for Gartner. As they described it, SASE uses a combination of technologies to combine wide area network and security controls as a cloud-based service that can be accessed directly rather than through a data center.

SASE’s rapid rise in popularity is related to the growth of mobile, edge, and cloud computing in the enterprise, allowing users, applications, and data to move out of the enterprise data center to the cloud and network edge. Some of the primary benefits of SASE are: reduced complexity, consistently secure access, improved performance, and cost efficiency.

While SD-WAN focuses on linking branch locations to an organization’s central network, SASE directs traffic via globally dispersed points of presence, eliminating the need to backhaul traffic through central data centers. While SASE accomplishes the same thing as SD-WAN, it adds additional layers of security, addresses the limitations of SD-WAN and takes into consideration rapidly evolving security needs.

Combining the SD-WAN with network security functions, SASE links all endpoints to the edge of an organization’s network, which is where it connects with the rest of the internet. Security is provided as a cloud service, using technologies such as cloud access security broker (CASB), firewall as a service (FWaaS), and secure web gateway (SWG). Instead of forwarding traffic to a control center for inspection and verification, SASE has points of presence throughout the network, so traffic can be sent to the nearest point, distributing the workload.

In short, SASE is both more efficient and more effective. The emergence and evolution of new technologies that live in the cloud, overall digital transformation, and edge computing, backhauling all traffic to a central data center has become inefficient and often unnecessary. SASE’s approach of providing secure connections on the service edge and verifying and directing traffic from points of presence solves the problem of inefficiency while bolstering security.

Among the main benefits are: workload distribution through enforcement points; virtual connectivity, enabling the replacement of virtual private networks; replacement of agent software with less costly ways of deploying to branch locations; simultaneous management of connectivity and security; and improved support for edge computing and IoT devices. From a management basis, SASE offers both cost and efficiency improvements.

Although they are both security frameworks that protect network infrastructure from threats, ZTNA is a core component of SASE rather than an equivalent approach to cybersecurity. While ZTNA provides a strategy for managing access and authorization controls for authenticated users, SASE is broader and more complex, offering more comprehensive network and security services, including zero trust. The most notable difference relates to scope: ZTNA focuses on providing access management and control, while SASE combines a number of network and security services — ZTNA among them — into a single solution.

SASE answers a number of challenges, including: the need for implementing and delivering security services; saving costs by utilizing a single platform; reducing complexity by minimizing the number of standalone security products; increasing performance; threat prevention and data protection; and implementing an overall zero trust approach.

From the user perspective, SASE can deliver improved performance — the result of distributing traffic between multiple network paths, which enables more efficient bandwidth usage. Overall network performance is improved through services such as load balancing and sharing.

First and foremost, SASE is a method of integrating network connectivity with security. Gartner’s definition states: “SASE capabilities are delivered as a service based upon the identity of the entity, real-time context, enterprise security/compliance policies and continuous assessment of risk/trust throughout the sessions..."