Embracing innovation means seeking common development, sharing resources, and finding win-win solutions. Fortinet, the cybersecurity leader driving the convergence of networking and security, takes this principle to heart with its industry-leading universal SASE network.
Lerner advised enterprises evaluating SASE solutions to prioritize security functionality and options that align with their business needs. He also recommended running a functional pilot.
Single-Vendor SASE Addresses Integration Issues
Many organizations need help to secure a work-from-anywhere environment that supports diverse applications and devices. Consistent security across all users and locations is nearly impossible with solutions not integrated on-premises and in the cloud. This issue is magnified as networks become larger and more distributed.
Fortinet delivers SASE networks in China by offering a unified cloud-based solution that combines networking and security functionalities. This solution empowers businesses to enhance their security posture and boost the performance of applications and remote devices that employees use.
The SASE market is estimated to grow at 20 percent per year and is expected to reach $36 billion by 2027. It combines SD-WAN, Secure Web Gateway (SWG), CASB, DLP, and Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) into a single, cloud-delivered service that protects the application and device ecosystem.
Fortinet is building on its value proposition as a single-vendor SASE provider with new capabilities that expand protection for remote workers, IoT/OT devices, and microbranches. For example, the company’s FortiAP wireless access points can now intelligently offload traffic from microbranches to SASE Points of Presence (PoP) for security inspection without requiring IT staff to add additional appliances and services. Fortinet is also enhancing its DEM offering and continuously improving its DLP to enable more comprehensive data loss prevention (DLP) and threat protection across the entire network.
Single-Vendor SASE Aligns with the Way Organizations Want to Work
When considering SASE implementations, organizations must look at their work and business needs. Choosing a single-vendor solution allows organizations to integrate better and align SASE with their current technical solutions while providing a consistent security posture and an optimal user experience for remote or mobile workers.
Organizations find it complex and costly to stitch together the networking and security capabilities they need from vendors that offer two-vendor SASE. In addition, integrating multiple vendor technologies in different points of presence increases latency and negatively impacts the end-user experience.
In addition, security and networking tools evolve at very different rates. This is because security technologies must stay ahead of evolving cybersecurity threats, and networks must be more agile for digital acceleration and workforce productivity.
SASE addresses these issues by bringing together networking and security functions into a cloud-based platform, allowing organizations to connect users and applications everywhere while closing gaps in visibility, management, and security. Fortinet’s SASE approach, FortiSASE, combines cloud-delivered SD-WAN connectivity with a cloud-based security service edge (SSE) that provides unified access for work-from-anywhere employees. It enables organizations to use security and network capabilities like zero-trust network access, CASB, and firewall-as-a-service. This is delivered over our #1 peered global network to create a powerful, single-vendor SASE for delivering applications everywhere while ensuring security and performance.
Single-Vendor SASE Offers a Comprehensive Solution
Multiple vendors offer SASE solutions, but most still need to deliver a fully integrated solution that provides networking and security features on one platform. This is problematic because it creates a patchwork of disparate technologies that work together inefficiently. The result is a series of costly workarounds that prevent teams from effectively using their existing infrastructure and creating a seamless, secure environment for users to operate across the network.
Fortunately, Fortinet (NASDAQ: FTNT) offers the most complete single-vendor SASE solution. Our unified security architecture unites best-of-breed networking and cybersecurity elements on a single operating system to ensure consistent performance and security regardless of where applications or employees are distributed. Our consolidated management console allows IT teams to control their entire network and access the web, cloud, and applications securely from anywhere.
To choose the best vendor for your organization’s SASE needs, map out the current solutions and the teams responsible for managing them. It will help you understand your unique situation’s most important functionality and capabilities. From there, look for a solution that offers FWaaS, CASB, SWG, and universal ZTNA — all under a single management platform. Finally, it’s worth weighing the costs of a single-vendor SASE against its flexibility to integrate with other security solutions and services on-prem in your data center. A great time to make this decision is when tech renewals are due, giving you clear due dates to align teams toward a single-vendor strategy.
Single-Vendor SASE Addresses China’s Network Security Challenges
In addition to reducing the number of solutions that need to be managed and maintained, single-vendor SASE offers other key benefits. For instance, a single platform can help break down the siloes between networking and security teams, making it easier for them to collaborate and share expertise. This is especially important given the work-from-anywhere trends that have driven organizations to adopt SASE.
Another key advantage of SASE is the ability to protect existing investments in connectivity, such as MPLS and SD-WAN. Cato CEO Yovel explained that SASE provides additional traffic control capabilities to prevent data leakage and ensure the security of legacy connectivity. For instance, if an unauthorized user attempts to transfer data to a chat platform like ChatGPT, Zero Trust controls, and DLP could automatically trigger and stop the transfer.
Many traditional SASE providers only support cloud traffic based on a set of PoP locations, making it impossible to enforce consistent security policies across traffic sessions, including on-premises and IoT applications. Fortinet’s universal SASE solution, delivered through partnerships, allows on-premises and IoT traffic to be secured in China while meeting local regulations and ensuring consistent policy enforcement for all traffic sessions.
The expansion of Fortinet’s single-vendor SASE offering to cover all functions and deployments reinforces its lead in the market. It is now the only integrated SASE solution that enables enterprises to deliver consistent security across on-premises and cloud access while reducing complexity and IT overhead.
