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Many organizations are in the midst of rapid digital transformation. In the past few years, numerous new and promising technologies have emerged and matured, promising significant benefits. For example, many organizations are rapidly adopting cloud computing, and the growing maturity of Internet of Things (IoT) devices has the potential to unlock new operational efficiencies.
At the same time, many organizations are changing the way that they do business, expanding support for remote and hybrid work policies. This also has impacts on companies’ IT architectures as organizations adapt to offer secure remote access to support a growing work-from-anywhere (WFA) workforce.
New Solutions Have New Network Requirements
As digital transformation initiatives change how companies do business, corporate networks and IT architectures need to adapt to effectively and securely support the evolving business.
Digital Transformation is driving new network requirements including the following:
- Remote Access: One of the biggest impacts of Digital Transformation is the growing need for secure remote access to corporate applications and systems. Remote workers need the ability to securely access corporate networks, and everyone requires secure connectivity to Cloud and Software as a Service (SaaS) solutions.
- Network Scalability: The expansion of corporate IT architectures to incorporate new technologies drives a need for more network bandwidth. Networking and security technologies must scale to meet growing demand.
- Platform Agnosticism: As companies deploy a wider range of endpoints and technology solutions, implementing and enforcing consistent, effective policies require a solution that works for any device and from anywhere.
- Decentralized Security: Historically, companies have taken a perimeter-focused approach to network security. As digital transformation dissolves this perimeter, organizations need network security solutions that provide service everywhere their users are.
Developing a Network Transformation Strategy
A network transformation strategy should be designed to meet the new and evolving requirements driven by digital transformation.
Some of the key factors to consider when designing and implementing a network transformation strategy include:
- Accessibility: Digital transformation initiatives commonly make corporate networks more distributed as remote users, cloud applications, and mobile devices connect to corporate resources from everywhere. A network designed to support the modern digital business must provide high-performance, secure access wherever users and applications are.
- Scalability: As companies deploy new technologies, their bandwidth requirements continue to grow. Networking and security solutions must be designed and implemented to easily scale to keep pace with the evolving business needs.
- Performance: Cloud applications are performance-sensitive, and inefficient networking will impact performance and user productivity. A network transformation project should ensure traffic is intelligently routed over the corporate WAN via high-performance, reliable network connectivity.
- Security: As users and applications move off-premise, they dissolve the network perimeter where, traditionally, companies have focused their security protection. Network transformation projects should include decentralized network security to ensure inspection and policy enforcement occurs closest the user or application.
Reaching Network Transformation Goals with Cato SASE Cloud
Companies undertaking digital transformation initiatives should look for network and security technologies designed for the modern, distributed enterprise.
SASE (Secure Access Service Edge) solutions offer various features designed to support digital and network transformation, including:
- Software-Defined WAN (SD-WAN): SD-WAN optimally routes network traffic over the corporate WAN. By monitoring link health and offering application-aware routing, SD-WAN optimizes the performance and reliability of the corporate WAN.
- Cloud-Based Deployment: SASE solutions are deployed in the cloud. This removes geographic limitations and enables them to leverage cloud scalability and flexibility.
- Integrated Security: SASE combines SD-WAN and network security into a single software stack. This enables traffic to be inspected, apply networking and security policies in a single pass, and then routed to its destination.
- Consist Policy Enforcement: SASE’s global cloud architecture ensures network and security policies are consistently enforced no matter where the users and applications are.
Cato SASE Cloud is a managed SASE platform that offers enterprise-grade security and optimized network routing over a global network of redundant Tier-1 carrierlinks. Learn more about how Cato SASE Cloud can help your organization meet its digital transformation goals.
Demetris Booth
As the Product Marketing Director for Cato Networks in Asia Pacific, Demetris leads the strategic engagements around Cato’s Cloud-Native approach to Secure Access Service Edge (SASE). He is a strong advocate and champion of network and security convergence, promoting SASE as the pathway to better business and technical outcomes. Prior to Cato, Demetris held various leadership roles with Sophos, Cisco, Juniper Networks and Citrix Systems. As a 20+ year technology industry veteran, he brings a diverse, global perspective, having lived and worked in North America, Europe, and Asia.