Addressing a Seamless, Flexible and Native Integration with Webex Calling

The companies announced plans that will help ensure a seamless and reliable mobile-first collaboration experience, allowing users the flexibility to take calls across multiple devices while traveling for work, running errands and more.

Cisco and AT&T says with the dramatic increase in the use of mobile phones as the primary business device, enterprises need connectivity solutions that are easy to manage, secure and provide the flexibility and reliability desired for work from anywhere. The Cisco and AT&T integration addresses this need with key features including:

• Single number mobile identity: Combining the capabilities of an AT&T wireless smartphone with the native integration of Webex Calling will provide greater functionality and flexibility for on-the-go communication.
• Reduce costs: This integration helps enterprise customers lower costs by reducing or eliminating the need for traditional fixed business lines.
• Crystal clear voice: AT&T Cloud Voice with Webex Go allows users to securely make and receive business calls using AT&T’s fast, reliable nationwide mobile network and seamlessly elevate calls to a Webex collaboration experience across the Webex App and devices, with capabilities like closed captioning, noise removal, and whiteboarding.
• Fast, efficient, and secure collaboration: AT&T and Cisco’s joint solution will increase the ability to effectively and securely collaborate no matter the location, resulting in improved knowledge sharing and faster decision making.

AT&T Cloud Voice with Webex Go will be available for all Webex Calling users from Cisco partners in the United States later this year.

SD-WAN Connectivity for SMBs, Enterprise Businesses

Demand for unified experiences over secure connectivity to the cloud and site-to-site continues to surge. Cisco and AT&T are working together to bring secure on-demand connectivity for SD-WAN with add-on services that may include mobile 5G and fiber broadband to businesses of every size.

For small and medium businesses, AT&T is launching a new self-service option to simplify and accelerate SD-WAN deployment. Businesses can now connect, protect, manage, and scale their networks using AT&T Business Wi-Fi with Cisco Meraki.

For larger enterprises, AT&T SD-WAN with Cisco is a fully managed connectivity solution with embedded security and analytics. Enterprises can now connect a user or device to any application in their multicloud using a secure access service edge (SASE)-enabled architecture. This delivers integrated security and application optimization for end-to-end visibility.

Cisco will also provide the ability to embed AT&T wireless connectivity into Cisco devices enabling zero touch provisioning for Cisco and AT&T customers, through AT&T Control Center powered by Cisco.

“The network is at the core of the modern workforce. The ability to get things done is no longer reliant on where you are, but how you are connected,” said Jonathan Davidson, EVP and general manager of Cisco Networking. “Hybrid work only works when there is a seamless, consistent, and secure experience for workers, regardless of location. Together with AT&T, we are giving businesses what they need to securely connect everything and everyone—wherever they are. Because when everything is connected, then anything is possible.”

Mike Troiano, SVP, business products, AT&T“Mobility, said, in a statement, “Mobility is key to enabling hybrid work. Businesses want a seamless and reliable communication experience. At the heart of our collaboration with Cisco is a shared vision to empower organizations with secure connectivity, unmatched reliability, and deep network expertise. By deeply integrating our technology, businesses can be assured their communications are built on a solid foundation. Together we are unlocking new levels of productivity, agility, and connectivity— enabling teams to thrive in the modern work landscape.”

The post Cisco and AT&T Join Forces to Expand Connectivity for Mobile-First Workforce appeared first on My TechDecisions.

According to the Campbell, Calif. cloud-first security company, its single-vendor SASE service is designed to help businesses and managed service providers (MSPs) strengthen their security posture and reduce costs. The company says Barracuda SecureEdge secures users, sites and IoT devices, and can connect any device, application and cloud or hybrid environment.

According to Barracuda, its SASE solution–delivered as a service–includes multi-layered network protection for consistent policy enforcement for both remote and in-office users, delivered from the cloud, on-prem or hybrid environments.

In addition, the solution offers protection against web-based threats regardless of user location, and secure remote access for any user to any application. SecureEdge also facilitates optimized cloud and application access from any user or site by providing Secure SD-WAN capabilities.

The solution also facilitates direct access to applications for remote users by leveraging Zero Trust enforcement, URL filtering, and traffic optimization to make the most of shared internet lines, the company says.

Specifically, Barracuda says SecureEdge provides control and visibility tools that give business and MSPs insight into user-generated traffic at each endpoint, allowing them to maintain control over critical application traffic.

Barravcuda’s new SASE service also features intent-based networking policies that are applied across the entire platform, including SD-WAN and secure application access, and multiple levels of security and connectivity with auto-secure SD-WAN are included over all available uplinks.

In addition, Barracuda SecureEdge includes built-in last-mile optimization using advanced forward error correction algorithms to mitigate packet loss and optimize network traffic, which are applied when connecting office locations and endpoints.

“Barracuda’s new SecureEdge platform provides businesses and MSPs with a SaaS solution that makes remote and hybrid work easier to secure and helps to improve security and reduce costs,” said Tim Jefferson, senior vice president of engineering for data, network and application security at Barracuda, in a statement. “With SecureEdge, Barracuda offers a cloud-native SASE platform that enables customers to control access to data from any device, anytime, anywhere, and allows security inspection and policy enforcement in the cloud, at the branch, or on the device.”

The post Barracuda Launches New SASE Platform for Businesses, MSPs appeared first on My TechDecisions.

According to Gartner, SASE includes SD-WAN, SWG, CASB, NGFW and enables zero trust access based on the identity of the device or entity, combined with real-time context and security compliance policies.

What is driving SASE adoption?

Organizations are struggling with complex IT infrastructure that has largely been driven by a massive increase in cloud adoption coupled with on-prem, legacy infrastructure in response to the pandemic and general market trends, according to Omri Guelfand, vice president of product management and SASE/networking as a service at Cisco Meraki.

While this trend began in the “early days” of cloud adoption with applications and assets moving out of the data center into private clouds, public clouds and co-located options, the pandemic greatly accelerated that shift. That pandemic-induced cloud migration was so rapid–essentially overnight–that organizations were forced to accelerate their cloud strategy by several years.

The result is an IT environment in which applications, resources, users, contractors and other entities are anywhere and everywhere, which makes managing and securing an organization’s network endlessly complex.

Essentially, SASE is designed to bring all of that together by delivering on one core underlying requirement: securely connecting users to applications–both of which could be anywhere. SASE is designed to make managing a network easier and more cohesive, which is essential as networking without security is becoming impossible, and the merging of networking and security is a foregone conclusion.

Different approaches to SASE

As organizations got to work to solve some of these networking and security challenges over the last few years, a variety of different approaches to solving some of these issues have emerged.

According to Guelfand, separate networking and security teams have started to solve all of these pieces to create better coverage of all the functions of a SASE architecture by deploying different solutions from a variety of different vendors, which he calls the “best of breed” approach.

“Gradually, you’ll create better coverage of all the functions,” Guelfand says.

On the other end of the spectrum is a one-stop shop for organizations that are less focused on how to get a complete SASE architecture. In this case, organizations typically work with one vendor or a managed service provider (MSP) to put all of those pieces together.

For an analogy, Guelfand uses food. For example, if someone wants to source the best ingredients for a pasta dish, they visit a specialty food store for past and sauce, a farmstand for fresh vegetables, and then a butcher for their protein.

Or, the person can just put their trust in a restaurant.

“A unified SASE is more of this ready-made dish where you’re benefitting from a quick-to-value to get the outcome you want and you don’t have to go through a lot of extra work, versus the other approach that gives you much more flexibility and control, but it comes with more things you have to do,” Guelfand says.

Benefits of the unified SASE approach

In the unified SASE approach, the name of the game is reduced complexity that starts with procurement of the solution. In the unified, single-source approach, SASE is a product rather than a combination of multiple point products, thus simplifying the consumption of the technology.

“This is where you have a more streamlined, consistent operational model whether you’re in a network context or security context,” Guelfand says. “At the end of the day, these are all policies that could be connectivity or security policies.”

The unified SASE approach blurs the lines between networking and security and brings those elements together into a consistent operational model that not only creates a better admin and user experience, but also makes solving incidents and issues easier.

Instead of the networking or security teams blaming each other and playing the blame game, the unified SASE approach gives “one throat to choke,” Guelfand says.

Especially for smaller organizations with a limited IT staff, a complete SASE solution from one vendor or service provider will help take that burden off of their hands.

Benefits of the best-of-breed SASE approach

However convenient the unified SASE approach may be, the reality is that most organizations are not yet ready to fully consume a unified offering, as many organizations are still operating with separate security and networking teams with different vendor preferences.

Organizations are also balancing their level of control and flexibility versus simplicity, with larger organizations typically opting to deploy point solutions to drive their SASE strategy. Those organizations will generally have a larger IT staff and a better IT staff-to-employee ratio, affording the organization more flexibility and more options.

Merging of networking and security teams

However, Guelfand says even those larger organizations with the typical silos are going down the consolidation path as networking and security teams begin to merge.

Typically, smaller organizations that were “born in the cloud” don’t have the legacy separation of networking and security functions, instead employing a type of digital IT that covers the full spectrum of activities.

Even at larger organizations with those legacy silos, there is consolidation at the executive level, and many of those larger security teams are actively driving SASE initiatives because the network has already started the transformation.

“Now it’s really around catching up with security and making sure that security can really be enabled to support this highly distributed environment in a way that solves the operational challenges of just managing point firewalls and policies that are scattered in different directions,” Guelfand says.

Key considerations when adopting and implementing SASE

• Evaluate different SASE solutions. Look at single-vendor solutions, multi-vendor point products, and managed offerings. Gartner recommends cutting complexity and cost by consolidating vendors at contact renewals, but acknowledges that there are still three legitimate ways to implementing SASE:
  • A single-vendor approach
  • A multi-vendor approach
  • A managed SASE approach
• Evaluate scalability and flexibility. SASE solutions that can scale both up and down to meet the needs of an organization is important.
• Leverage existing investments. Rather than a rip-and-replace strategy, organizations should leverage and integrate their existing capabilities and solutions to protect those investments.
• How do the vendors, partners or service providers help guide customers on their SASE journey?
• Any SASE solution should be based on robust security research and insights to protect against emerging threats. This is especially important when deploying a unified solution, which is essentially putting the organization’s complete trust in one vendor.
• How is the SASE platform extensible to other technologies beyond secure network access.

The post SASE Adoption and Different Approaches to Implementation appeared first on My TechDecisions.

Like other SASE solutions designed to solve the complexity that remote work and multi-cloud environments have introduced, the companies hope to give organizations a better understanding of the users in their environments and enable them to control what applications and systems can be accessed.

Accenture, Palo Alto Networks Joint SASE Solutions, Services

The joint solutions provide additional benefits for organizations, including reduced complexity and greater efficiencies with fewer vendor tools and technology stacks, the companies say in a joint news release. In addition, this provides improved visibility with fully integrated threat preventions security.

Palo Alto Networks and Accenture’s joint SASE offering and integrated services include SASE diagnostic and advisory services to help clients reimagine network security architecture and expedite their cloud adoption. Joint customers can leverage environment assessment and recommendations for a Zero Trust and SASE approach, as well as a data-drive diagnostic tool to identify the right network architecture to improve security postures in cloud and hybrid IT environments.

In addition, Palo Alto Networks and Accenture will offer SASE implementation services to help organizations design and deploy secure network modernization and edge security while helping customers unlock digital transformation opportunities and move toward Zero Trust. The services will cover network segmentation and edge security using Palo Alto Networks’ SASE solution, covering both the SSE to support remote workers as well as SD-WAN for branch offices, the companies say.

SASE-as-a-Managed-Service

The joint services also feature SASE-as-a-Managed-Service, which the companies say is an end-to-end offering with Prisma SASE with zero trust network access (ZTNA 2.0) as the secure foundation for a cloud-enabled organization. The solution includes a cloud-managed wide-area WAN component to leverage the major cloud providers’ global networks based on Palo Alto Networks technology.

According to the companies, the service provides the scalability and advanced security capabilities required to create trusted networks, while reducing upfront investment costs and optimizing network and security operations for greater agility and reliability.

Accenture is also adopting core components of Palo Alto Networks’ Prisma Access and Prisma Cloud solutions as part of its strategy to enhance security for its client-centric workforce, many of whom work remotely, the company says.

The post Accenture, Palo Alto Networks Launch Joint SASE Solutions, Services appeared first on My TechDecisions.

According to the San Mateo, Calif.-based company’s annual Enterprise Network Transformation report, 98% of IT leaders say they plan to increase their investment in cloud services despite a growing fear of a looming recession.

In addition, 94% of organizations say SASE will play a larger role in their networking and security plans, and 62% plan to eliminate multiprotocol label switching from their operations.

The company says these trends highlight the ongoing shift to the cloud from traditional IT to help support hybrid and remote work models, but also indicate that enterprise IT leaders see networking and security as vital to their organizations’ long-tern success.

According to the report, 47% of IT leaders say their organization will accelerate cloud and network services adoption despite economic uncertainties, which suggests that IT leaders recognize the ability for cloud to help support distributed work and lead to better application performance and security.

Other findings suggest that organizations are reinventing how they think about security in the wake of the pandemic and distributed work. The survey found that 90% of IT leaders believe that zero trust network access is a crucial component of SD-WAN and SASE services, while 98% say hybrid work has increased the need for new network and security solutions.

An overwhelming 99% of IT leaders said hybrid work has changed the way they view managing networks and security, but the report also indicates that organizations are still behind when it comes to hybrid work plans as 58% say they need plans for a hybrid workforce immediately, while 39% said they need plans in the next 6-12 months. Another 3% said they need those plans more than a year out.

The report ultimately concludes that SASE and network-as-a-service solutions are now critical to solving the problem of network complexity and security. According to Aryaka, 96% of C-level IT leaders say managed services and network-as-a-service will play a larger role in 2023.

In a statement, Aryaka CEO Matt Carter says businesses need to be able to be flexible, adaptable and nimble.

“Our report indicates that the vast majority of CIOs, CISOs and IT leaders are preparing for this uncertainty by investing in and adopting architecture, policies and technologies that converge networking and security, as these disciplines are critical to business success,” Carter says.

The post Cloud Investments Spurring Need for SASE, Managed Services appeared first on My TechDecisions.

According to the Santa Clara, Calif.-based firm, this is an evolution of the company’s zero trust network access (ZTNA) solution that goes beyond other ZTNA solutions that claim full replacement of legacy VPN technology while missing support for some use cases.

Netskope says organizations are replacing legacy remote access VPNs with more modern, efficient ZTNA technology. VPNs, the company claims, can be vulnerable to cyberattacks and don’t provide visibility into applications. Further, they can struggle with network degradation and may lead to poor user experiences.

In addition, VPNs can complicate IT infrastructure with multiple solutions needed for security and network performance that often don’t integrate with one another.

Netskope ZTNA Features

While the move toward zero trust is undeniable, many solutions don’t support all key enterprise use cases. Netskope’s ZTNA Next aims to solve that balance by offering converged ZTNA and SD-WAN capabilities delivered as a single solution with no hardware required.

According to Netskope, this allows companies to completely retire remote access VPNs for all relevant application access use cases while improving security and user experience.

In a statement, Naveen Palavalli, vice president of products at Netskope calls the idea of complete VPN replacement with ZTNA a “utopian promise” that tech vendors have been making for years. That promise, however, has gone unfulfilled as most ZTNA solutions lack support for legacy applications that require server-initiated traffic flow, forcing organizations into an incomplete zero trust approach, Palavalli says.

“Today, full VPN retirement is 100 percent achievable using ZTNA Next, with which Netskope can help organizations accelerate ZTNA adoption, drive infrastructure modernization, and boost remote worker productivity,” Palavalli says. “Leveraging the combined power of Netskope Endpoint SD-WAN and Netskope Private Access, customers will gain unparalleled visibility and control over all private application traffic.”

Among the benefits of ZTNA Next, per Netskope, include reduced cost and complexity, tool consolidation, fixing legacy app compatibility issues, extending the life of legacy VoIP infrastructure, AI-driven troubleshooting, deeper insights into network traffic, and the ability to connect to corporate resources from any device.

Netskope ZTNA Next will be fully available to customers later this year. Netskope Private Access, along with all Netskope SSE services, will be featured for demonstration at the Netskope booth S842 at RSA Conference on April 24-27 in San Francisco.

The post Netskope Claims 100% Legacy VPN Replacement With ZTNA Next appeared first on My TechDecisions.

The San Mateo, Calif-based company says it plans to establish 27 new POPs in 21 countries and in 15 major metropolitan areas worldwide to further expand its global hyperscale infrastructure. The POPs are expected to deliver low latency end-to-end for faster connection speeds, along with cloud-delivered services for network, security and observability, while meeting each geographic location’s regulatory requirements and performance needs.

Aryaka’s AppAssure technology will be deployed on POPs, providing insights into jitter, latency, and loss per app and per user for optimal application performance for both on-site and remote users. Furthermore, Aryaka is enhancing its SD-WAN offering based on its industry-unique FlexCore – a dual layer 2 and layer 3 global backbone and adding intuitive navigation to its MyAryaka customer portal for simpler self-service.

Related: Aryaka Announces Zero Trust WAN Based on Unified SASE Architecture

“There are steady increases in SaaS deployment models, public cloud spending, and use of internet WAN across businesses of all sizes, and our POP investment sets the foundation that our customers and future customers will need to be successful in a constantly evolving business landscape,” says Renuka Nadkarni, chief product officer of Aryaka. “With escalating security threats and any businesses becoming a distributed enterprise, companies of all sizes and in any vertical are looking for a partner that can offer business continuity and IT resilience, operational simplicity on a global scale, and unified security enforcement. There are very few providers that can offer all three elements effectively as part of a Unified SASE offer.”

As part of its commitment to providing operational simplicity, Aryaka is offering customers more options and an enhanced experience for last-mile services with wired and wireless connectivity with a single point of contact. Aryaka’s last-mile connectivity services enable fully managed LTE, 4G, and 5G connections in over 90 countries utilizing Cradlepoint Wireless Edge and NetCloud.

The post Aryaka Invests in Bringing Managed SD-WAN & SASE to More Markets appeared first on My TechDecisions.

According to San Mateo, Calif.-based Aryaka, the company’s zero trust WAN is based on a unified secure access service edge (SASE) architecture designed to help IT leaders transform the enterprise while defending against relentless cyberattacks by converging networking and security in an all-in-one service.

The company says the solution can also help organizations that have adopted a hybrid work policy, as the unified SASE approach delivers security, connectivity and flexibility enterprises need to adapt.

“Today’s CIO is asked to not only transform the enterprise but do it while battling a relentless cyber threat, and all with even less people and resources,” says Dennis Monner, chief commercial officer of Aryaka. “It’s an incredible challenge that can’t be solved with legacy carrier connectivity and point security products.”

The approach includes a collaboration and commitment to trusted advisors and partners, as well as focusing on simplicity and a cloud-first strategy, the company says.

Aryaka says its Secure Web Gateway is a defense for Site-to-Internet and User-to-Internet traffic, and it protects against web and internet-based attacks.

Combined with its Firewall-as-a-Service, Aryaka says it ensures customers have flexible perimeter security for distributed users, devices, and applications that provides benefits such as:

• Improved patch and update readiness
• Reduced operational complexity
• Correlated view across events
• Reduced vendor portfolio
• Reduced total cost of ownership (TCO)
• Increased capital efficiency

“We attack the problem from a completely unique perspective,” says Renuka Nadkarni, Aryaka’s chief product officer. “By truly integrating security into our global, software-defined network and delivering it as a service, we enable enterprises to instantly ‘turn-on’ a SASE architecture that was built in, and for, the cloud.”

The post Aryaka Announces Zero Trust WAN Based on Unified SASE Architecture appeared first on My TechDecisions.

As businesses are rapidly adopting SASE architecture to enable hybrid work, they must safeguard data wherever it moves, support digital transformation efforts and realize better efficiency and return-on-investment from their technology. The Netskope converged SASE platform includes Netskope’s Intelligent Security Service Edge (SSE) and Borderless SD-WAN capabilities, which are crucial to providing optimized access and zero trust-based security needed in today’s technology stack.

Netskope says the need for Cloud Firewall is urgent, as traditional firewalls are no longer capable of addressing requirements for outbound security policy in hybrid work environments. More enterprises are also looking to obtain SASE capabilities from a single source to reduce vendor and tool sprawl. Gartner notes that by 2025, 65% of enterprises will have consolidated individual SASE components into one or two explicitly partnered SASE vendors, up from 15% in 2021.

Flexibility and Choice in Firewall Coverage

According to Netskope, Netskope Cloud Firewall, which harnesses Netskope NewEdge infrastructure for fast delivery and smooth performance, offers customers flexibility and choice in FWaaS deployment options. Netskope Cloud Firewall is designed to provide cloud-delivered firewall egress protection for users and offices around the world and reduces administrative effort by applying firewall policy in the cloud instead of at the edge.

With new advanced security capabilities, Netskope Cloud Firewall:

• Delivers firewall app control which enables precise enablement over traffic that is allowed, providing stronger protection and coverage when compared to standard port and protocol policies alone
• Disrupts attacks which leverage Domain Name System (DNS) tunnels and blocks connections to malicious domains, protecting any user, device, and location with Layer 7 inspection against these threats
• Reduces the total cost of managing outbound security policy by consolidating administration for web and non-web traffic from a SASE architecture, rather than at the network edge
• Protects branch office networks and secures SD-WAN deployments
• Works together with Netskope Next Gen SWG to protect users from cloud threats and control web activity
• Improves security overall, preventing the dangerous compromises on coverage, application visibility, and network performance frequently seen in legacy infrastructure

“From cap-ex headaches, to compromises on security, it’s clear legacy firewalls can no longer support the demands of a cloud-first, hybrid work world,” said John Martin, chief product officer at Netskope, in a statement. “We built Netskope Cloud Firewall to satisfy a wider range of use cases specific to direct-to-internet environments, relieve administrative burdens, and block threats everywhere users are located.”

The post Netskope Updates SASE Platform with Advanced Cloud Firewall Capabilities appeared first on My TechDecisions.

The Santa Clara, Calif.-based Netskope says the addition of Infiot’s technology as Netskope Borderless WAN will enable the company’s customers to apply uniform security and quality of experience policies to a wide range of hybrid work needs, including on site or remote offices, point-of-sale systems and multi-cloud environments.

Those capabilities will be delivered in a single architecture that uses one policy framework and console to help simplify operations and preserve network performance and SASE success, the company says.

When combined with Netskope Intelligent SSE, Netskope Borderless WAN is a fully converged SASE designed to address longstanding issues in the SASE market that often sees “piecemeal product sets that are spuriously marketed” as SASE, the company says.

However, most of those products are not natively integrated, don’t simplify IT environments and lack critical network and infrastructure transformation capabilities, Netskope says in its announcement.

The company says critical use cases of Borderless WAN include:

• Easy access to industry-leading Netskope Intelligent SSE services powered by the Netskope NewEdge infrastructure
• All-in-one intelligent access, routing, wireless WAN, network security, app assurance, and edge compute way to modernize, simplify and implement SASE architecture
• The ability to offload MPLS and eliminate costs by sending more traffic direct-to-net, eliminate backhauling and leverage fixed/mobile connectivity options (such as 4G/5G)
• Better guaranteed WAN connectivity to ensure end-to-end performance, from the “last mile” to the cloud or legacy data center
• Simplified operational overhead associated with running custom third-party applications

In a statement, CEO Sanjay Beri said IT, security and networking professionals agree that the explosion of data and devices and new communication and collaboration methods make the transformation of both networking and security a critical imperative for businesses and governments.

“It is in this transformation where Netskope is uniquely positioned to help customers with a fully converged SASE platform,” Beri said. “We’re very excited to introduce Borderless WAN, and to welcome Infiot to our growing team.”

The post Netskope Launches Borderless WAN Offering With New Acquisition appeared first on My TechDecisions.