What is SASE and why is it important to your business?

What is SASE and why is it important to your business?

SASE (Secure Access Service Edge) is an emerging technology that combines various security services into a single, cloud-delivered service model.

With more data, devices, users and application services being used than ever before, enterprises are increasingly reliant on the cloud to support business growth. That’s accompanied by increasing networking and security related problems for those that use traditional WAN architectures. Enterprises that fail to make use of the cloud and virtualise away from expensive physical architecture will inevitably see a rise in costs.

As your enterprise continues to grow or makes plans to expand into new markets including China and the Asia Pacific region, the requirement for enhanced security products grows with it. Your employees and customers need a secure, low latency experience, regardless of location or device.

Employees working remotely, because they are working from home or travelling for work, require the same speeds and security wherever they are in the world. Customers demand simplicity, scalability, flexibility, low latency and pervasive security. Together these needs are forcing convergence of the WAN edge and network security markets.

SD-WAN and SASE – what’s the difference?

Software-defined WAN (SD-WAN) has been available for years. It enhances performance, reduces costs and keeps critical assets safe – providing a superior experience for enterprises and customers. However, providing access between your enterprise and the cloud can create new security risks.

New threats are emerging almost daily, the potential for cyber-attacks continues to expand, and many security tools are failing to keep pace with increasingly bold bad actors.

Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) is a new architectural model, also based in the cloud. It combines all the features and capabilities of SD-WAN plus additional comprehensive security functionalities. SASE integrates cloud services into the SD-WAN, giving secure access to users. It’s the convergence of WAN and network security into a single cloud-delivered service model.

Use SASE to add these security services to your enterprise:

• FWaaS – Firewall as a Service: Provides firewall features in the cloud. This reduces costs by removing the need for physical hardware at branch locations.
• ZTNA – Zero-trust Network Access: Allows for users and devices to be identified by software built within the cloud, protecting data from access by unauthorised users.
• SWG – Secure Web Gateway: Protects users and devices from malicious websites and inappropriate content – no matter their location.
• CASB – Cloud Access Security Broker: Lets your enterprise see the location of your data and protects it from unauthorised access.
• Threat prevention: Protects users from network-based virus/malware, by detecting and blocking threats at WAN entry and internal connections.

SD-WAN and SASE – what’s the difference?

The SASE key principles of single management platform, single network and single agent can deliver many benefits to your enterprise.

Less complexity, less hardware

By unifying network and security features onto a single cloud platform, SASE reduces and in some cases eliminates the requirements for physical specialised hardware. The SASE single-pass architecture merges cloud security and networking architectures under unified management, resulting in reduced complexity and increased performance. And because SASE is a single cloud-based application, management complexity does not increase as your network grows.

Fewer patches, easier adjustments

Traditional network architecture constantly requires the latest in patches and security devices to keep up with ever-changing cyber security threats. SASE alleviates this issue with FWaaS. The management platform allows for enterprises to easily set and alter company-wide content policies and spot irregularities.

Better scrutiny across your network

SASE also enhances network monitoring, providing a real-time picture of all connections which can be viewed in a single interface. This also provides visibility into identifying potential security weaknesses.

How can China Telecom (Europe) help your business benefit from SASE?

As a global technology leader, we build flexible, feature-rich platforms over our advanced private network. We work with a variety of world-class partners for SD-WAN and SASE to support your customers, partners and employees in China, Asia-Pacific and beyond to deliver the best solution for your business needs.

Through our China Telecom SASE solution, we can help your enterprise realise SD-WAN functionality (ZTP, application based QoS) and Cloud integration, and manage existing network environment integration and security design at branch, HQ, IDC, cloud and remote client sites.

Our unrivalled knowledge of the Chinese market and regional offices across Europe make CTE an ideal partner for European and Asian businesses looking to work and expand in China and Asia.