What is SASE?

Traditional corporate networks were built around the idea of defending the boundary between "inside" and "outside." If you were inside, you were safe; from outside, you connected via VPN.

In recent years, however, several shifts have taken place.

• ✓The spread of cloud services. Business data and applications moved from in-house servers to the cloud, such as Microsoft 365.
• ✓More diverse work locations. Working from outside the office — from home, on the road, or at satellite offices — has become far more common.
• ✓The limits of VPN. As more users connect, communication slows down, and routing everything back through the office creates waste.

As the things that need protecting moved outside the office, defending the boundary alone could no longer keep up. This gave rise to the idea of placing networking and security together in the cloud and applying the same controls no matter where access comes from. That is SASE.

• ✓Users can access resources under the same security standards wherever they are.
• ✓Traffic is inspected in the cloud instead of being routed back through the office, so it is fast.
• ✓Decisions are based on who, on which device, is accessing what.
• ✓Multiple security products can be operated as a single service.

The key point is that SASE is not a single product name but a framework that combines several functions. The security-only part of SASE is sometimes referred to as SSE (Security Service Edge).

A term often discussed alongside SASE is "Zero Trust." Zero Trust is a security philosophy of "trust nothing, always verify."

It becomes easier to understand if you think of SASE as the concrete realization of this Zero Trust philosophy in the form of networking and security mechanisms. The philosophy is "Zero Trust," and one of the means of achieving it is "SASE."

Many small and mid-sized businesses are already using Microsoft 365. In that case, Microsoft solutions that can be built together with Entra ID, Intune, and Defender become a realistic option that helps keep additional investment and learning costs low.

On the other hand, when there are many sites or you want to rethink the network as a whole, a different approach may be more suitable. Rather than starting from a specific product, we begin by organizing your current state and challenges and propose a form that fits your company.

• QWhat is SASE?
  It is a concept (framework) that delivers networking and security functions together as a single cloud-based service. It was proposed in 2019 by the research firm Gartner. It is not a single product name but a framework that combines multiple functions.
• QHow does SASE differ from SSE and Zero Trust?
  SSE is the term for the security portion of SASE. Zero Trust is a design philosophy of "trust nothing, always verify," and SASE is the framework that realizes that philosophy in the cloud, including networking.
• QWhat are the main components of SASE?
  It is made up mainly of four functions: SWG (web access control), CASB (visibility and control over cloud use), ZTNA (per-application access control), and FWaaS (cloud-based firewall).
• QCan small and mid-sized businesses adopt SASE too?
  Yes. Because it is cloud-based and requires no hardware at each site, it can be adopted in stages. A realistic first step is to understand your current network and how it is being used.
• QWhat are the pros and cons of adoption?
  The benefits are that you can apply the same security standards regardless of location and operate multiple security functions in a unified way. The drawbacks are the monthly running costs and the certain level of skill required for the initial design and operation.