Doing business anywhere demands integrated network security everywhere

In a highly cloud-enabled, hybrid workplace, post-pandemic world, businesses are faced with the challenge that doing business anywhere, from any device, demands integrated network security everywhere.

Gartner’s introduction and definition of Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) predates COVID-19, but the pandemic has sharpened the focus on SASE for organisations of all sizes, as they move further into the cloud.

And with the cloud computing industry expected to grow at over 17% CAGR to over US$830 billion by 2025, the demands now being made on cloud security are bigger than ever.

Organisations are therefore seeking solutions that resolve the challenges of being secure in an increasingly cloud-based reality, and the opportunities that cloud access, and its inherent flexibility and scalability, can offer.

Remote access, not remote insecurity

The accelerated move to remote and hybrid working (with companies having some IT resources and applications in on-premise data centres and some in the cloud) has heightened the complexity of remote security access and management. As employees remain dispersed, companies have been faced with multiple access points - laptops, mobile phones, tablets, and existing company servers. Point security access protocols, particularly for personal (BYOD) devices, mean that IT managers have had to manage branch security typically across multiple vendors.

The result? Multiple security policies and protocols, using different tools and applications, all of which heighten the risk of a security breach.

Superloop's recent partnership with Palo Alto Networks is designed to answer these challenges.

The partnership brings together Superloop's in-house security expertise with Palo Alto Networks' products and services in the Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) and software-defined wide area networking (SD-WAN) space - resolving this complexity and heightened risk with a single security layer that manages all security requirements consistently from a 'single pane of glass'.

The result is an integrated approach to building secure, software-defined networks, for businesses on the path to cloud-based security, without the need for expensive hardware investment to comply with stringent security standards.

The demand for SASE solutions, and the size of solutions considered, differ by size of business and vertical market. For example, mid-sized businesses may prefer outsourced security management services , whereas large enterprises may have a requirement to manage network access themselves, or to manage certain areas of their network and the associated access.

"We believe that businesses should not be penalised either by their size, or where they are on their migration from on-premise security to in-cloud security," says Superloop’s Group Executive for Business, Dean Tognella.

And with Superloop's SASE solution, a customer can decide how much SASE it wants to know and learn.

Integrating security - on-premise and off

The challenge facing network managers is to ensure that the end-users, the company's cloud servers, and the access between both, are secure across the entire network so that users, traffic, and data accessing a corporate network are secure from end to end.

Because SASE is the convergence of network and security into an integrated cloud-based service, it can manage security away from legacy, on-premise firewalls. The access point essentially becomes the security point.

The Superloop solution provides users with a continuum of security management - a sliding scale of end-user control that goes from fully-serviced to fully hands-on management.

What's more, the degree of secure access self-management can be changed (subject to the commercial arrangements between Superloop and customer) to reflect and accommodate changing business requirements.

Using Palo Alto Networks' Prisma Access and Prisma SD-WAN solutions, Superloop will build secure network access for businesses that are capable of accommodating the reality of remote workers using their own devices (BYOD) without compromising the security of the corporate infrastructure.

Technology that includes Firewall as a Service (FWaaS), Cloud Secure Web Gateway (SWG), Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB), and Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) provides application access for remote users and branch locations.

There are no hand-offs or bolt-ons to confuse accountability or to compromise the actual security - something that Gartner took pains to emphasise when it first described the principles of SASE in late 2019.

Making SASE real

Superloop's strategy places network controls on the cloud edge, allowing organisations to expand their network perimeter, and provide secure access to any remote user, branch office, device or application.

Together these provide multi-layer security features that eliminate malicious attacks and threats, ensuring full security over customer and cloud-based networks. As a next-generation cloud-delivered SD-WAN solution, it delivers a rich set of security and network services as a fully-autonomous, application-defined networking to support organisations’ migration to cloud at a reduced cost.

Features include:

• Simple one-stop management of your network and SD-WAN solution

• Enhanced end-to-end visibility of service performance and fault automation

• Simplified network management and security services, underpinned by Palo Alto Networks' reputation as a market leader, to reduce costs and improve ROI

• Trusted and dedicated support from inside Superloop to support transition, solution implementation and evolution

• Transparent and flexible commercial contracts to suit your organisational requirements

• Simplified operations through an Integrated security platform and network

• Complete flexibility in selecting the right security model for your business

• Quickly and securely empower distributed workforces with complete visibility and control

• Scalable and high performance network and security solutions backed by leading capabilities