Why hybrid and multi-cloud are putting pressure on existing firewalls and networks
For many years, companies have focused on securing their central enterprise data center. A traditional network firewall was sufficient to verify and then secure the connections of your employees. However, we have started working remotely more often and hybrid working has made its appearance. In addition, companies have started to use more cloud-based applications.
But as an IT manager, how do you ensure that your users can connect safely and quickly to all those different cloud applications anywhere? Here SASE networks (secure access service edge) can help to better secure and accelerate your enterprise network traffic.
4 business challenges that SASE cloud solves to keep data fast and secure
1. The challenge: Securely connect business locations to any application
Your coworkers must be able to connect to business applications from any location as fast and securely as possible. Normally, branch offices and remote workers would connect to the central enterprise data center, and from there to the cloud applications. But this creates two common problems.
- Firstly, this creates delay (latency) because the traffic must follow an illogical route to the company network, and then connect to the cloud application via another longer route.
- Secondly, this traffic stresses the central enterprise firewall and makes it difficult for IT managers. They constantly have to create extra rules for new employees, devices, and applications.
SASE Solution: Automatic local aggregation, validation, and routing
SASE solves this problem by aggregating the traffic through the nearest edge node. Through the local SASE Edge PoP (cloud and network node), the traffic is automatically validated and routed to the local data center or a public cloud provider. As an IT manager, you prevent traffic from accumulating unnecessarily in your company network. You can be sure that the traffic is always optimally secured thanks to SASE cloud networking services.
2. The challenge: Securely connect remote employees to any cloud application
Your colleagues all expect your IT team to have a well-functioning secure connection to their favorite cloud applications. For years, IP-VPN was the ideal solution to connect to the enterprise data center from anywhere via the public internet. This way of working remotely is no longer suitable today for three reasons.
- First, the quality of the public internet is not always good enough everywhere. For example, for a stable connection to the enterprise data center and various cloud applications.
- Secondly, many colleagues still connect to public cloud applications without fully secure connections.
- And thirdly, during the lockdowns and the many working from home, many companies ran into the maximum capacity of their company networks and firewalls. The current VPN load and the capacity of the WAN connections were insufficient and not scalable.
Solution: Global SASE entry points and local firewall authentication
Thanks to SASE, this concern has been solved. Your colleagues can now automatically connect to the nearest SASE PoP location, via built-in secure clients in their devices or in a browser. The global SASE network optimizes the traffic of your colleagues and sends it to the business applications via the best and fastest route available. The worldwide SASE network is automatically scalable, so that you as an end user never suffer from latency. As an IT manager, you will no longer be surprised by flooded network ports.
3. The challenge: Connect businesses worldwide to new cloud applications – fast and secure
With many companies choosing to implement a multi-cloud IT strategy, both the role of the enterprise data center and the MPLS network are changing. After all, the MPLS network had one function: To establish a central secure connection to applications in the data center. But because many applications are now available in external public clouds, the need to route all traffic through the enterprise data center has been eliminated. The demand for flexible and scalable connections is increasing.
Solution: SASE moves flexibly with your dynamic cloud strategy
SASE is therefore the ideal solution for companies that want to remain flexible, without having to constantly revise the network design. Thanks to SASE, you can quickly switch to a multi-cloud strategy, but also just as easily back to hybrid or just private cloud. The SASE network is automatically scaled and adjusted based on your usage and choices. This makes you as an IT organization with a dynamic SASE network a lot more flexible than with a static MPLS network.
4. Securely and quickly connect to multi-cloud services and own data centers simultaneously
Many companies are experimenting with web application firewalls to secure the edge locations of the corporate network. As a result, they have to configure different web application firewalls to each cloud provider and optimize them for access to the enterprise data center. This creates another problem that each web application firewall provider has its own routing and protocols for connections to public cloud providers.
SASE Solution: Built-in private network links with public cloud providers
Thanks to SASE cloud networking, there is no longer a need to configure additional firewalls yourself. Users connect over the public Internet to the nearest SASE PoP location through a secure tunnel. After that, the traffic is sent in a closed network via the fastest route to the desired cloud provider. SASE users benefit from already built-in direct links to for example AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud. This eliminates the need for expensive separate connectivity services such as ExpressRoute or Direct Connect.
Contact
SASE can be the ideal future proof cloud networking and security solution for many organizations that want to make optimal use of IT and remain flexible. With SASE, your colleagues and IT organization remain flexible, no matter how your private, hybrid or multi-cloud strategy changes in the future. Contact me and follow me on LinkedIn to learn more and how I can help you secure and transform your data center and enterprise network.