The age of SASE and Network-as-a-Service is upon us

Aryaka has released its annual Enterprise Network Transformation report, outlining key trends in the network and security market. The report, compiled from a survey of more than 230 C-level, vice president and director-level leaders at global enterprises in network and security roles, uncovers priorities, challenges and opportunities these leaders plan to address in the coming year.

The trends uncovered by Aryaka’s report include:

· An uncertain economy is impacting network and security team investments, but CIOs, CISOs and

· IT leaders are doubling down on investment in the cloud.

· The rapid shift to cloud services and the complexity of a now hybrid workforce have changed how modern IT leaders view network and security, likely forever.

· Network and security leaders are no longer able to choose between investing in application performance or security, they need it all.

· Network-as-a-Service (NaaS), the continued decline of multiprotocol label switching (MPLS), and a need to consolidate a sprawling vendor stack is forcing legacy telcos to lose their longtime stranglehold on the enterprise network.

· NaaS is not only emerging, it is exploding on the scene as one of the only viable solutions for IT leaders to solve the growing complexity of an anytime, anywhere world.

Significantly, 98% of those surveyed indicated they plan to increase their investment in cloud services, despite ongoing economic uncertainty. This counters the narrative of a “technology slowdown,” instead indicating that IT leaders are shifting from traditional IT to the cloud, which is aligned with the workforce’s adoption of hybrid and remote models along with the continued need for networks to connect people, applications and enterprises to datacenters, edge devices and cloud infrastructure.

Furthermore, 94% of respondents believe SASE will play a larger role in their networking and security plans, while 62% plan to eliminate MPLS from their operations.

“In this current era of uncertainty, chaos and unprecedented times, one of the consistencies we are seeing is that businesses need to be flexible, adaptable and ready for anything,” said Matt Carter, Aryaka CEO. “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.”

Aryaka’s findings underline that enterprise leaders see networking and security as vital to their organizations’ long-term success, with 47% of survey respondents indicating they plan to accelerate cloud and network services adoption despite current economic conditions. These executives recognize the critical need for ongoing cloud investments, hybrid work and better application performance and security, while anticipating the decline of MPLS and the arrival of NaaS as a key long-term investment.

The results further validate Aryaka’s Unified SASE approach that tightly integrates connectivity, security, and multi-cloud connectivity as part of a global managed service. A unified approach results in reduced complexity, better observability and control, and a more effective ROI. Supporting this, Aryaka now supports its SWG and FWaaS both within its Hyperscale PoPs as well as its on-premises hardware appliances, an extremely flexible hybrid edge architecture. Aryaka’s deep multi-cloud expertise and multi-layer global backbone was further recognized in a recent Gartner report, “Leverage Cloud Connect Infrastructure to Improve Connectivity Experience of Cloud Workloads for SASE Solutions.”

Parallel to Aryaka’s self-developed Unified SASE offer, the company remains steadfast in its dedication to delivering Managed SASE solutions, including 3rd party firewalls and cloud security options such as from Check Point and Palo Alto Networks. As a customer-centric organization, Aryaka aims to meet customers wherever they may be on their SASE journey. Additionally, in support of this SASE journey, Aryaka provides customers with managed migration services. With Managed SASE solutions that incorporate 3rd party options, Aryaka has successfully deployed its security services at scale to numerous customers.