By Shidan Yu, Director of Technical Sales, Aruba China.
As enterprises move to cloud-centric architectures, traditional network and security architectures are no longer sufficient to meet the needs of modern business environments. At the same time, the widespread adoption of cloud services, mobile devices, IoT, OT, and hybrid work, and the distributed and dynamic environment are putting forward higher requirements for enterprises to achieve secure, reliable, and efficient access to applications and data from any device, anytime, anywhere.
According to a 2023 global research report released by HPE Aruba Networking, 44% of enterprise IT leaders view the network as a tool for digital transformation, and regard IT efficiency, operational efficiency, and network security as the three core areas that affect the interconnectedness of the network and various services. Therefore, how to ensure the collaborative evolution between the network and services, and ensure network security at all times, has become the focus of current enterprises.
Traditional network security architectures present multiple challenges
With the rapid evolution of enterprise technology and business environment, cybersecurity risk is increasingly becoming a focus for enterprises. The dynamically changing security landscape poses serious challenges for organizations on multiple levels.
1.Permission risk
Traditional VPNs often lead to a poor user experience. VPNs that don't employ fine-grained controls can lead to excessive network privileges, resulting in users gaining access to resources beyond what they need, increasing security risks.
2.Data Risk
Traditional networks struggle to cope with the large-scale migration of applications on the cloud, resulting in degraded performance and data security risks. As SaaS application data increases, organizations need to take extra steps to protect sensitive information against potential data loss caused by untrusted cloud applications (or shadow IT) and insecure links.
3.Device Risk
Employees browsing the internet or accessing email are highly vulnerable to cyberattacks such as phishing attacks and ransomware. At the same time, the proliferation of IoT devices has resulted in a significant increase in the attack surface. However, IoT devices often have simple designs and lack sophisticated security mechanisms.
4.Regulatory Risk
Companies must comply with regional privacy data protection regulations, such as China's Data Security Law or the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). However, businesses often lack the essential tools and comprehensive reporting they need to demonstrate their compliance.
Actively deploy SASE to build a network security barrier
SASE combines advanced WAN edge capabilities with SSE
To address these challenges, the Secure Access Service Edge (SASE), an IT framework that integrates networking and security functions into a single platform, has emerged. Born in 2019, this new cybersecurity concept helps enterprises create a secure, reliable, and efficient network environment by combining SD-WAN and Security Service Edge (SSE) to provide secure connections to users, devices, or servers using any mode of transmission.
According to Gartner, by 2025, 50% of global enterprises will purchase SD-WAN as part of a single vendor's SASE product, up from less than 10% in 2021. Clearly, while a multi-vendor architecture allows for the selection of best-of-breed solutions for specific SASE functions, single-vendor SASE solutions are starting to gain traction among enterprises due to their ease of deployment, single point of support, and simplified licensing.
There are five key points to choosing a single-vendor SASE solution.
1.Cloud-native infrastructure and scalability
The single-vendor SASE solution is designed with a cloud-native architecture to take full advantage of the scalability and flexibility unique to cloud computing. This state-of-the-art architecture enables enterprises to dynamically allocate resources based on traffic demand, resulting in a more efficient and adaptable network.
In addition, global network interconnection through geographically distributed network service delivery points (POPs), regardless of user location, is critical to ensuring consistent performance and low latency. A single vendor SASE simplifies the process of managing these network service delivery points and eliminates the multiple network service delivery points required for a multi-vendor SASE approach.
2.Unified policy management and fine-grained control
Unlike a multi-vendor SASE approach, a single-vendor SASE solution will allow IT administrators to manage all security policies, including SWG, CASB, DLP, and ZTNA, through a single interface. This approach simplifies operations, reduces complexity, and helps organizations effectively deploy and enforce consistent policies. At the same time, a single-vendor SASE solution helps enterprises respond to security threats more quickly and adjust security policies in the overall architecture in real time when a security incident occurs. More importantly, it enables IT administrators to implement fine-grained access control based on users, identities, and devices.
3.Centralized user interface and comprehensive dashboards
In addition to providing unified policy management, a single-vendor SASE solution enables IT teams to manage all network and security operations in a centralized user interface. This capability improves visibility into network traffic, security events, and policy enforcement to better support threat detection and incident response. In addition, a single-vendor SASE solution enhances reporting capabilities to provide proof that organizations meet regulatory requirements and industry standards.
4.Integrate SASE capabilities
With a single** vendor SASE solution, organizations can easily integrate multiple SASE capabilities to enhance their security posture. For example, use SWG, CASB, and DLP to monitor user activity and protect sensitive data from leaking to the Internet and SaaS applications. Not only that, but SWG and CASB will leverage Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) decryption to analyze Hypertext Transfer Secure Protocol (HTTPS) traffic. By using a single-vendor SASE solution, you can improve performance and reduce complexity by performing a single SSL test. In addition, by combining SWG, CASB, and ZTNA, enterprises can implement more granular control over network access and allow or deny access to specific or cloud applications based on user identity.
5.Universal Zero Trust Access
Universal Zero Trust Access is a fundamental shift in the approach to cybersecurity, allowing users and devices to securely access resources from anywhere. At the heart of the approach is the principle of least privilege access, which reduces the attack surface by dividing traffic based on identity and role, ensuring that users and devices only have access to the resources necessary for their tasks. In addition, private resources block the internet and keep users away from the network. Third-party contractors can also easily access the network through ZTNA-less solutions without the need to install security on the device.
When users connect to a corporate network, the integration of network access control (NAC) with ZTNA becomes critical. The NAC verifies the security status through a device health check and ensures security before authorizing network access. At the same time, conducting a health assessment of specific devices ensures that those devices comply with the organization's antivirus, anti-spyware, and firewall policies, allowing the organization to grant access to users and devices based on their inherent risks.
In branch scenarios, SD-WAN plays a key role in connecting branch users to headquarters. It intelligently directs traffic to the cloud while eliminating the need for traffic backhaul to the data center. Advanced SD-WAN solutions provide built-in next-generation firewall capabilities, including intrusion detection systems, intrusion prevention systems (IDS IPS), and micro-segmentation to perform zero-trust access. When a new user or device connects to the corporate network and registers, SD-WAN will combine with the NAC to deliver security policy information to the entire network, along with any updates related to users, device types, roles, and security posture, to enforce role-based segmentation within the LAN and WAN. Also, since IoT devices don't have **, it is not possible to run a third-party VPN or ztna client on it. A single-vendor SASE approach helps secure IoT devices by segmenting the network based on identity and other traffic, while ensuring that users and IoT devices reach destinations that match their role in the business.
HPE's Aruba Networking unified SASE solution delivers exceptional value
Adopting a single** SASE solution provides enterprises with a robust security strategy to address the multiple challenges of modern cybersecurity. By seamlessly integrating SD-WAN and SSE components, enterprises can secure their networks, accelerate deployment, simplify adoption, and thrive in an ever-changing digital landscape.
HPE Aruba Networking Unified SASE Platform.
The HPE Aruba Networking Unified SASE Solution combines EdgeConnect SD-WAN with HPE Aruba Networking SSE.
HPE Aruba Networking SSE provides users with advanced security features such as ZTNA, SWG, CASB, and DEM (Digital Experience Monitoring).
EdgeConnect SD-WAN is a secure SD-WAN solution with a built-in next-generation firewall that seamlessly integrates with HPE Aruba Networking SSE. For the sixth year in a row, HPE Aruba Networking has been named a Leader in the 2023 Gartner Magic Quadrant for SD-WAN. Previously, IDC MarketScape released the results of the 2023 Worldwide SD-WAN Infrastructure** Vendor Assessment, in which HPE Aruba Networking ranked highly.
For more information on the HPEARuberaNetworking Unified SASE Platform, please visit: