Why SASE Sits At The Centre Of A Hybrid Workforce

“Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) is an architecture that consolidates connectivity and security into a single cloud platform. The increased attention towards SASE is mainly due to the major shift to cloud and remote work, accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic,” Patric Balmer, Managed Security Service Provider Lead at Spark, said in an exclusive interview with CIO. “By architecting a cloud platform to be able to protect users no matter where they work, it’s possible to deliver that new way of working – but the challenge is ensuring a secure environment for staff to easily and safely access their applications no matter where they work.”

SASE takes security best practices, software-defined networking (SD-WAN), and a host of other technologies and brings them together in a nuanced way that delivers quality and cohesive connectivity to the furthest reaches of the network’s edge. While combining security and network connectivity might seem mundane, getting it right is pivotal in delivering the kind of modern and flexible working environment that employees demand.

Overcoming the five main challenges of distributed environments

While the value of taking applications and workloads from on-premises environments to the cloud, and allowing users to interact with them from anywhere, is self-evident, it’s also not without risks and IT challenges. These include:

• Network Connectivity and Reliability: Distributed computing faces challenges in maintaining reliable network connectivity due to intermittent connections, latency, and bandwidth limitations.
• Security and Privacy: Distributed environments introduce security risks, requiring robust measures such as encryption and continuous monitoring, alongside privacy safeguards like data anonymisation and consent management. Adopting a zero trust approach to security is also an essential step in embracing decentralised computing.
• Data Management and Storage: Managing data in distributed environments can be challenging due to limited storage and computational power, but strategies like aggregation and edge-to-cloud architectures optimise storage while preserving critical information.
• Scalability and Resource Constraints: Scaling distributed deployments can be hindered by limited resources, but edge orchestration frameworks and cloud integration help optimise resource utilisation and enable load balancing.
• Deployment and Management Complexity: Deploying and managing edge infrastructure involves complexities like remote management and software updates, which can be simplified through automation tools, centralised monitoring, and standardised frameworks.

The convergence of network connectivity and security

Perhaps the most critical challenge, however, is that to achieve distributed environments in an era of hyperscale cloud and hybrid cloud working environments, there is a need to have a convergence between the network and security that many organisations, particularly in the enterprise and government spaces, haven’t really grappled with before.

“It’s not an easy one for many of our customers to navigate,” Richard Fitch, Connectivity Practice Lead at Spark, said. “We’ve had to make changes in our own business around how we bring these two things together to deliver on the distributed IT promise, and we’re having to spend a lot of time with customers to help them bridge the gap within their own organisation. SASE in one organisation might look different for another organisation as well, so we’re here to help customers navigate their own journey and requirements.”

The quality of the connectivity sits at the heart of success for any SASE strategy. As Fitch added: “It’s kind of the plumbing. It’s a little unsexy, but it makes everything happen, and therefore it needs to be well-engineered and architected to make sure that it’s delivering the best possible experience for users.”

In short, SASE involves fusing connectivity and security into a singular cloud-based framework. It means doing away with VPNs and trust-all policies to mandate authentication and validation for every user and device prior to resource access. This model guarantees secure connections to necessary applications, irrespective of location or device.

Zero-trust plays a crucial role in securely and reliably connecting users to applications in the cloud.

The adoption of a zero-trust model is a key component of SASE, where every user, regardless of their location inside or outside the organisation, is validated before they connect to the applications.

Balmer provides an example of a doctor and their iPad. In the workspace, that iPad allows them access to patient records, as they need them to do their job.

However, while at the local café, which is a fundamentally insecure environment for highly regulated data such as patient records, the doctor would be unable to access those records there. The user experience of the iPad hasn’t changed – the doctor could still use their device to send emails or catch up on the news – but the critical security of the patient data is being protected.

The zero-trust approach shifts the focus from securing the network perimeter to authenticating individual users and devices, and continuously monitoring for suspicious activity. This shift from perimeter security to identity-based security is due to the increased adoption of remote working and is more effective in protecting against sophisticated cyber-attacks and data breaches.

While hybrid work models offer many benefits, they also create several challenges for IT teams, including maintaining data security and ensuring connectivity. Traditional network security approaches are no longer sufficient to protect organisations with a hybrid workforce. They’re often too complex and siloed, making it difficult to manage and secure access to data and applications from multiple locations.

The strategic adoption of SASE enables organisations to gain the agility and resilience necessary in today’s hybrid work environment and adapt to the evolving needs of a remote workforce. The convergence of network and security empowers organisations to provide secure and reliable access to applications and resources, anytime, anywhere, and from any device.

Find out more about SASE solutions from Spark NZ here.