SASE or SSE? Don’t let hype distract from enterprise needs

Secure access service edge (SASE) has generated a buzz over the last couple of years, particularly in light of the pandemic and its associated surge in remote employees. But SASE hasn’t quite materialized in the way Gartner – which first coined the term in a 2019 white paper – initially expected. In particular, there’s been pushback around the idea that SASE should be delivered by a single vendor, as a single integrated cloud service at the network edge. The SASE model combines network security functions with WAN capabilities, delivering the security elements in the cloud and using SD-WAN at the edge or in the cloud. Key security functions include secure web gateway (SWG), zero trust network access (ZTNA), firewall as a service (FWaaS), and cloud access security broker (CASB).