It will also allow companies to respond faster to crises, minimizing the impact the crisis has on the enterprise. In data heavy sectors where security is critical, SASE will likely provide a better, safer, user-friendly experience. However, the global pandemic has raised the bar on business continuity (opens in new tab), and the next stage of digital transformation is coming much sooner than many of us in this industry expected it. Digital transformation is coming soonĮarly in 2020, the convergence of SD-WAN, security and cloud was several years down the road. Most of you will probably adopt more than one technology vendor and a hybrid model in the initial stages, where traditional networking and security systems can handle existing connectivity between data centers and existing sites, leaving SASE to take care of new connections, devices, users, and locations. Many envision SASE as being a from a single vendor or possibly a single platform, but experience has taught that technology which may appear to deliver simplicity is often complex to implement and manage, especially when scaling up for a global organization. Our ability to deliver large, multi-year and multi-continent design and deployment of new infrastructure is well proven. Marry that with managed security (opens in new tab) and our relationships with the major cloud providers, and AT&T is well-placed to be a trusted advisor for a SASE implementation. AT&T provides subject matter experts to help navigate that difficult path of integrating the right solutions for the customer. SDWAN is a key component of the SASE architecture. With the level of complexity in a modern, digital network, many companies choose a managed SD-WAN service. AT&T has been at the center of many complex, global transformation projects and, as a result, we’ve learned some of the positives and pitfalls. The reality proved to be something different in the early stages. Promises were made about savings and simplification. Let’s rewind a few years to when SD-WAN technology began to emerge. It encourages businesses to begin consolidating these functions through fewer vendors in order to centralize visibility, simplify management, and potentially reduce costs. Essentially, it’s an architecture that combines wide area network (WAN) technology with comprehensive security functions. The term, which stands for Secure Access Service Edge, was coined by leading analyst firm Gartner in 2019. And here’s why.Īs we look ahead, the fully formed solution that comes from intertwining these elements in networking and cybersecurity (opens in new tab) technology is what’s being dubbed SASE (pronounced sassy).
#THE NEXT BIG THING 2021 HOW TO#
The need to approach holistically on how to wrap the distributed ecosystem in a security umbrella, is key in safeguarding these assets. The additional smart network layer allows much more flexibility in managing enterprise IT infrastructure (opens in new tab), as well as providing a good platform for remote workers to access corporate assets, but it doesn’t stop there.
The businesses who were well down that road have arguably been able to respond better to the impact of a global pandemic. In recent years companies have adopted SD-WAN technology to help them better manage their network traffic and applications. The likelihood is that many will continue to have some form of flexibility about where they work in the future, which means there’s a permanent problem to solve: the sheer numbers of people sitting outside of the traditional corporate network using the internet to access resources via cloud computing (opens in new tab), and how to optimize users’ experience and to help protect them and the data (opens in new tab) they use. And now we have an army of remote workers numbering in the millions around the world. Business leaders also want to drive down cost. There’s an ever-growing need for greater bandwidth.