SASE Adoption Grows as Cato Networks Reports 220% Increase in 2019 Bookings

Massive business growth and industry adoption of the secure access service edge (SASE) architecture, pioneered by Cato, caps an incredible year

TEL AVIV, Israel, March 03, 2020— Cato Networks, provider of the world’s first SASE platform, reported today its 2019 results that saw bookings grow 220% year-over-year and a doubling in channel-led business. Today, more than 450 enterprises with tens of thousands of locations and mobile users rely on Cato every day.

“We founded Cato five years ago on the premise that enterprise networking and security had to converge into the cloud, and last year’s results are the clearest validation of that vision,” says Shlomo Kramer, CEO and co-founder of Cato Networks. “We’ve seen massive business growth, incredible customer traction, and widespread industry endorsement of the Cato approach in the form of Gartner’s SASE framework. Today, Cato is the industry standard for SASE.”

SASE Validates Cato’s Approach to WAN Transformation

The secure access service edge (SASE), which Gartner introduced last August, describes an architecture converging networking and security for all enterprise edges – sites, mobile users and cloud resources – into a global, cloud-native platform. Cato was recognized as a “Sample Vendor” in the SASE category of the Hype Cycle and is the only company today to offer a fully functional, global SASE platform.

Evidence of SASE’s adoption can be seen in Cato’s 2019 results. While customers can purchase Cato’s SD-WAN capabilities alone, most chose to purchase SD-WAN with other SASE components. More specifically, 70% of Cato customers chose a Cato SASE solution of SD-WAN with built-in advanced security, and 50% chose to replace an MPLS service with SD-WAN and Cato’s global backbone. Cato also more than doubled the mobile VPN licenses sold with SD-WAN.

Channel Adopts Cato SASE For Incredible Growth

SASE also has significant implications for the channel, and in 2019 Cato saw total growth from channel-led business increase by more than 200%. The convergence of multiple capabilities into one global platform gives Cato channel partners unprecedented opportunity to deliver new services, improve profitability, and increase customer value. Cato partners saw a 387% increase in upsell opportunities to existing customers. To date, more than 200 certified partners have joined Cato’s Global Partner Program with Accelerated ROI that launched mid last year.

Massive Customer Adoption Across All Industries

SASE has also contributed to the strong customer adoption of Cato in 2019 with Cato’s customer base doubling across industries. Most customers not only purchased site connectivity, typical of an SD-WAN vendor, but also chose the additional features of a SASE solution, such as advanced security, mobile access, and cloud connectivity.

Komax is one example. A leading manufacturer in the automotive industry, Komax moved from an appliance-centric, managed SD-WAN service for its global network to Cato: “As an IT organization, we were well familiar with the benefits of the cloud and wanted the same for our network infrastructure,” says Tobias Rölz, Vice President of Global IT & Digital Business at Komax.

“Cato allowed us to move intelligence and computation away from the edge SD-WAN appliance into the Cato Cloud. As a result, deploying branch SD-WAN became simpler, faster, and with less operational costs than what we experienced with a managed service running security processing on SD-WAN appliances.”

Cato Adds Capabilities and Expands Geographic Reach

As a cloud-native service, Cato constantly delivers new capabilities. It was no different in 2019 with Cato expanding its network to more than 50 points of presence (PoPs) worldwide and introducing more than 100 features including:

• Cato Managed Threat Detection and Response (MDR) that offloads the resource-intensive and skill-dependent process of detecting malware compromised endpoints onto Cato.
• Cato Instant*Insight that brings in-depth investigation and research capabilities without the deployment complexity, upfront investment, and the learning curve of legacy SIEMs.
• Hands-free Management, a managed service that enables enterprises to offload network and security configuration and change management onto Cato or its partners.
• Next-Generation Anti-Malware, where Cato partnered with SentinelOne, the autonomous endpoint protection leader, for network-based, zero-day threat prevention.

Executive Team Grows Along with Engineering and Sales Teams

To drive and steer this incredible growth, Cato expanded its executive team and increased overall headcount by 82%, particularly in engineering and sales. Eyal Heiman was appointed Vice President of Engineering. Daniel Lee was appointed to Vice President of Sales, Asia-Pacific, and Japan (APJ) while Luca Simonelli was appointed Vice President of Sales for Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA).

SOC 2 Compliance Attests to The Maturity of the Cato Platform

Further evidence of the enterprise-grade nature of the Cato platform came with achieving SOC 2 compliance. SOC 2 is the security standard developed by the American Institute of CPAs (AICPA) that defines criteria for managing customer data. It requires companies to establish and follow strict information security policies and procedures aligned with today’s cloud requirements. SOC 2 is backed by yearly independent auditing, which in Cato’s case, was conducted by Ernst & Young Ltd based on AICPA’s Trust Services Criteria. SOC 2 compliance comes in addition to Cato’s existing compliance with GDPR and ISO 27001.

About Cato Networks

Cato is the world’s first SASE platform, converging SD-WAN and network security into a global, cloud-native service. Cato optimizes and secures application access for all users and locations. Using Cato, customers easily migrate from MPLS to SD-WAN, optimize connectivity to on-premises and cloud applications, enable secure branch Internet access everywhere, and seamlessly integrate cloud datacenters and mobile users into the network with a zero-trust architecture. With Cato, the network, and your business, are ready for whatever’s next. www.CatoNetworks.com