With businesses more distributed than ever before, employees working remotely, applications migrating to the cloud, and customers demanding seamless digital interactions, your network infrastructure needs to be fast, reliable, and secure. Traditional networking models cannot keep up with the advancements made in today’s day and age. That’s where SASE and SD-WAN come in. They offer businesses high-performance connectivity with increased security.
About SD-WAN
SD-WAN (Software Defined Wide Area Networking) is designed to simplify management of the network and optimize its performance across various locations. Instead of routing the data through a centralized data center, SD-WAN smartly redirects its course to the best possible route, whether that’s MPLS, broadband internet, or LTE. This flexibility improves performance, reduces latency, and lowers operational costs. Businesses with multiple branch offices, or that are working remotely, often find themselves using SD-WAN over WAN, as it’s a significant upgrade.
What Makes SASE Different?
While SD-WAN takes care of the performance and scalability part, it doesn’t really cover security, which is where SASE, or Secure Access Service Edge, comes in. SASE enhances SD-WAN capabilities with advanced cloud-level protection services, such as secure web gateways, cloud access security brokers, firewalls, and zero-trust network access. Unlike traditional networks, where the security is within a specific perimeter, SASE ensures security follows the user wherever they connect from. Whether the user connects from home, a cafe, or on the other side of the world, SASE makes sure the user is protected.
How SD-WAN and SASE Work Together
It’s not about choosing one over the other; SD-WAN and SASE complement each other perfectly. Think of SD-WAN as the performance engine and SASE as the security solution.Together, they create a platform that delivers high performance with robust security services.
Key Benefits of Combining SD-WAN and SASE
●Scalability: As businesses enter new markets or switch to a hybrid work model, scaling up with SASE and SD-WAN becomes very easy. SASE ensures adding new locations won’t disrupt the flow, and you don’t have to worry about installing new hardware. With SD-WAN, you can ensure high performance from day one.
●Performance Optimization: With SD-WAN being so dynamic, it reduces latency problems on applications like Microsoft 365, Zoom, or Salesforce, and combined with SASE ensures fast, secure access all around the globe.
●Security Without Compromise: Instead of managing multiple security points, like VPNs, firewalls, and proxies, businesses can integrate all of them into the SASE framework. This ensures consistency when enforcing security policies.
●Cost-Efficient: By using local lines instead of expensive ones like MPLS, SD-WAN cuts costs. SASE removes the need for on-premises security appliances. Further reducing costs.
●Support for Remote Work: With distributed teams being the new norm, the need for a fast, secure network for remote employees is at an all-time high. SASE helps deliver zero-trust access policies and encryption, ensuring that the remote employees’ data will stay safe.
The future of networks is no longer choosing between performance and security; it’s about integrating them both effectively and efficiently. SD-WAN provides the agility and cost-saving measures that businesses need, while SASE provides the required cloud-native security that every person in the company needs. They empower businesses to scale quickly, deliver high performance, and maintain security.
