Embrace SASE

SD-WAN adoption was extremely slow from inception and into 2021. The main reason for the slow adoption was due to a lack of education prior to intense market demand, based on inflated cost-savings estimates over Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) and other legacy network types. Gartner defined the Gartner Hype Cycle as a method for evaluating when to leverage a New-to-Market (NTM) technology. In their five phases, they identify levels of understanding a shiny new market idea prior to consumption. The benefit of this approach is that it gives the perspective necessary to make an educated decision. More information is available at the following link: https://www.gartner.com/en/research/methodologies/gartner-hype-cycle.

Educated decisions require available educational material, which doesn't materialize in the market until the Trough of Disillusionment. Phase three is roughly where the lessons learned are documented and an effective curriculum is developed, allowing training to start. At the time of writing this book, the Hype Cycle for SASE is still effectively in phase one, where there is much more excitement than factual data.

The promise of SASE is tied to the value; faster, easier, more secure, more automation, and rapid deployment. Better, faster, and cheaper is the market's battle cry. A well-designed SASE can deliver on all these when paired with the right resources. The correct mindset is that security is done in layers, and the best security leverages as many layers as is productionally sound. The best security does not come from a product but through best-practice frameworks implemented correctly. The qualified resource can come from networking, security, or software backgrounds, but is the continually self-educating resource that is concerned about being right for the sake of those served, as opposed to being right for the sake of righteousness. There is no silver bullet for solving the resource/ market/skills gap; however, the right resources will self-educate perpetually, allowing themselves to be wrong in knowledge so that they can remediate their gap and their solution will be right in production.

In conclusion, SASE helps organizations reduce their ongoing labor investments in security operations after initial design and implementation. While embracing SASE will take a significant investment of time, it will provide significant returns.

The next section will provide you with an outline for a comprehensive presentation on SASE that can be tailored to your target audience.