Pros and cons of managed SASE

AmerCareRoyal, which provides disposable products for the food service and hospitality industries, is the product of six mergers and acquisitions over the past several years, and its former network security setup couldn’t keep up.Jeff DeSandre, who joined the company as CIO in 2019, wanted an SD-WAN platform that came with more advanced management options and firewalls. After looking at the market, he added threat detection and response capabilities to his wish list. “I was focused on getting our arms quickly around our wide area network and securing our edge, and then making sure that the solution I went with could scale to my long-term roadmap,” he says.To read this article in full, please click here READ MORE HERE…

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Work from home is here to stay, so how should IT adjust?

The pandemic has changed how we work, probably forever. Most employees with jobs that can be done effectively from home have no intention of returning full time to the office. They find that their work-life balance is much more balanced without the long commutes and constant interruptions that accompany office work.According to a McKinsey/Ipsos survey, 58 percent of American workers had the opportunity to work from home at least one day a week in 2022, while 38 percent were not generally required to be in the office at all.To read this article in full, please click here READ MORE HERE…

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Looking ahead to the network technologies of 2023

What’s the single most important thing that enterprises should know about networking in 2023? Forget all that speeds-and-feeds crap you hear from vendors. The answer is that networking is now, and forever, linked to business applications, and those applications are linked now to the way that we use the Internet and the cloud. We’re changing how we distribute and deliver business value via networking, and so network technology will inevitably change too, and this is a good time to look at what to expect.Growth in Internet dependence
First, the Internet is going to get a lot better because it’s going to get a lot more important. It’s not just that the top-end capacities offered will be raised, in many cases above 2 Gbps. Every day, literally, people do more online, and get more interactive, dynamic, interesting, websites to visit and content to consume. Internet availability has been quietly increasing, and in 2023 there will be a significant forward leap there, in large part because people who rely on something get really upset when it’s not working.To read this article in full, please click here READ MORE HERE…

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Cisco expands its SD-WAN software for wider reach, better security

Cisco has broadened the scope of Cisco SD-WAN software by growing its reach and security, and expanding its support for deploying multi-region WAN fabric.The idea behind the new features is to help manage the complexity and security of connecting to cloud resources from the edge of the network, said JP Shukla, director, product management, in Cisco’s Enterprise Cloud & SD-WAN group. “They want to connect these users as reliably and securely as these users would be in an office environment,” he said.
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Palo Alto Networks bulks-up its SASE portfolio

Palo Alto Networks is reinforcing the security and operational features of its Prisma secure-access service edge (SASE) package.New features include the ability to adjust security settings for multiple software-as-a-service-based apps, new security capabilities, and AIOPs support. In addition the company is expanding its family of Ion SD-WAN security devices to provide additional configuration options.

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SASE or SSE? Don’t let hype distract from enterprise needs

Secure access service edge (SASE) has generated a buzz over the last couple of years, particularly in light of the pandemic and its associated surge in remote employees. But SASE hasn’t quite materialized in the way Gartner – which first coined the term in a 2019 white paper – initially expected. In particular, there’s been pushback around the idea that SASE should be delivered by a single vendor, as a single integrated cloud service at the network edge.The SASE model combines network security functions with WAN capabilities, delivering the security elements in the cloud and using SD-WAN at the edge or in the cloud. Key security functions include secure web gateway (SWG), zero trust network access (ZTNA), firewall as a service (FWaaS), and cloud access security broker (CASB).To read this article in full, please click here READ MORE HERE…

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IP addressing could support effective network security, but would it be worth it?

Why is it that over 90% of enterprises tell me that they expect to spend more on security over the next three years, and almost 60% say they expect to spend less on networking? We obviously think that network technology is getting more efficient, more competitive. Why isn’t that the case for security? The short answer is that enterprises have been chasing acronyms and not solutions.Acronym-chasing comes about because by nature, security is hard to plan for. The average network expert finds out there’s an issue because some higher-up reads or hears about a breach. Maybe they do a quick search, and they find out that what they really need is SASE. Or maybe they need SSE, which we’re told is SASE without SD-WAN. In any event, what happens is that there’s pressure to add this new thing on, and that creates another layer of protection…maybe.  Complication and cost? Surely.To read this article in full, please click here READ MORE HERE…

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Basing network security on IP addressing: Would it be worth it?

Why is it that over 90% of enterprises tell me that they expect to spend more on security over the next three years, and almost 60% say they expect to spend less on networking? We obviously think that network technology is getting more efficient, more competitive. Why isn’t that the case for security? The short answer is that enterprises have been chasing acronyms and not solutions.Acronym-chasing comes about because by nature, security is hard to plan for. The average network expert finds out there’s an issue because some higher-up reads or hears about a breach. Maybe they do a quick search, and they find out that what they really need is SASE. Or maybe they need SSE, which we’re told is SASE without SD-WAN. In any event, what happens is that there’s pressure to add this new thing on, and that creates another layer of protection…maybe.  Complication and cost? Surely.To read this article in full, please click here READ MORE HERE…

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Cisco SD-WAN software gains broader application access, enhanced analytics

Cisco has tweaked its flagship SD-WAN software package to increase customer application flexibility and improve visibility into the performance of distributed resources.The company announced Cisco SD-WAN release 17.8, which adds support for new business and customized cloud applications, analytics and security features.SD-WAN buyers guide: Key questions to ask vendors
Specifically, the company upgraded the SD-WAN Cloud OnRamp for SaaS service, which links branch offices or individual remote users to cloud applications such as Cisco’s Webex, Microsoft 365, AWS, Google, Oracle, Salesforce and more.To read this article in full, please click here READ MORE HERE…

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Gartner: SSE is SASE minus the SD-WAN

SASE adoption has been skyrocketing since the start of the pandemic. Secure access service edge, a term Gartner coined in 2019, combines security and networking in a single, scalable, cloud-based platform that fits well in a world in which employees work from home and mostly access cloud-based apps and services.Now Gartner is pushing a new acronym. Turns out, companies might prefer to get their SASE without the “A” — just security service edge, or SSE. Gartner this month published a Magic Quadrant for SSE (something the company never did for SASE); it’s available from vendors listed in the report (here and here, for example).To read this article in full, please click here READ MORE HERE…

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