The CommandLink Five-Minute Guide To SASE

SASE stands for Secure Access Service Edge (and you might like to know that it’s pronounced the same as the word ‘sassy’). The term has emerged over the past couple of years, ever since it was mentioned by Gartner in their report ‘The Future of Network Security in the Cloud’ in 2019. In their words, SASE is defined as “converged offerings combining WAN capabilities with network security functions”.

SASE brings together Wide Area Networking and several other network security functions into a single cloud-based package. These network security functions can include Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA), a Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB), a Secure Web Gateway (SWG) and Firewall-as-a-Service (FWaaS). Introducing SASE breaks down existing technological silos and makes a network more visible and easier to manage.

Having such a comprehensive security package based in the cloud makes it much easier and more flexible to implement a vast array of security services. These can include prevention of credential theft, of data loss and of threats in general; DNS security; next-generation firewall and much more.

SASE can be delivered in a much more simplified way compared to legacy security infrastructures, which is easier for your IT team to manage and maintain and helps you make significant savings in your IT costs. What’s more, a cloud infrastructure enables secure access to data and applications for users, wherever they are in the world - and that’s important at a time when flexible work is on the rise.

Because interest in SASE was largely sparked by Gartner, many businesses rely too much on the Magic Quadrant for SASE when selecting a vendor. As well as the Magic Quadrant, there are other important considerations that should also be taken into account, in order to be sure of an exceptional outcome:

- Whether the deployment will be managed or co-managed
- The technology within the chosen SASE platform
- How that technology integrates with software and automated workflows
- The support a vendor can offer, including design engineering, deployment project management, and 24/7 access to technical resources
- The Service Level Agreements that accompany the solution, particularly regarding uptime, network performance and support response

CommandLink stands out from all other SASE providers, because we combine four critical elements into our package:

- Two different SASE platforms, both of which  are Gartner Magic Quadrant Leaders
- Full integration of all services, including SD-WAN and SASE, into a proprietary single-pane application. We capture what’s unique about each customer’s environment so we can automate support workflows, enable complete lifecycle change management documentation, and open direct communication with support resources
- Access to exception design engineering resources, dynamic project management, and a Command|POD team made entirely of Tier-3 Engineers. This gives you a smooth deployment and 24/7 support to drive your ongoing success
- Industry-leading SLAs, including  robust network performance metrics and unprecedented uptime.