The hustle of work ecosystems today swim around a distributed, cloud-reliant workforce, which can be faulty for those transitioned to hybrid or remote offices — and enterprises must address security and connectivity just as aggressively for hybrid users as they would in a traditional corporate environment.
Many enterprises didn’t design a long-term architecture that could keep up with a cloud-first world for hybrid workers. Before the pandemic, organizations commonly deployed multiple point solutions in order to meet those basic technology needs at home. But with the sudden shift to a remote workforce, this caused a lack of visibility, operational complexities and more, according to Netskope.
“Organizations using outdated SD-WAN and security technology have realized they can’t patch their way to a better network, can’t prioritize or secure what they can’t easily discover, and shouldn’t rely on cumbersome SD-WAN architecture that wasn’t built for a highly distributed, cloud-centric workforce,” said Netskope’s Parag Thakore, senior vice president, Borderless SD-WAN.
Here enters Netskope’s Endpoint SD-WAN, a software-based unified Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) client that merges SD-WAN and Security Service Edge (SSE). Endpoint SD-WAN would be the industry’s first software-based unified SASE client to deliver security and application experience for hybrid workers on the same level they would receive in the traditional office.
Endpoint SD-WAN is “a single agent which will give you all the benefits of SD-WAN and all the benefits of SSE, all built into a single consolidated agent without having any hardware appliances,” Thakore told Siverlinings during an interview. “Especially for remote workers who need that consistent high performance connectivity and security no matter where they are.”
The solution will also feature artificial intelligence (AI)-driven operations, unified architecture and consistent context-aware policy, meaning zero trust policy, SD-WAN, etc. will run across the entire solution portfolio with simple, secure, high-performance access to hybrid and cloud environments.
“If SASE is important, cloud is important. You can consistently get that high performance, secure connectivity for both cloud and on premise.”
Let’s not break the bank
Netskope’s Unified SASE also eases cost and complexity by running as 100% software on a user’s laptop or other device. “Cost saving does come from eliminating these point solutions,” said Thakore. “And it also comes from the fact that you're managing it on a single console, and you're eliminating multiple point products in the process.”
The solution also has the potential to halt enterprise spending on public cloud by “allowing clients to simultaneously and directly connect to multiple public and private data centers,” according to Netskope. Which, “eliminates the egress traffic costs observed when client traffic must unnecessarily hairpin through a public cloud provider, such as AWS, to access apps that may be in another cloud provider, such as Azure.”
Netskope Endpoint SD-WAN will be generally available later this year and will be shown at the RSA Conference later this month.