Customer experience isn’t just an important aspect of the SASE market, it is its essence. SASE isn’t about groundbreaking features. It is about a new way to deliver and consume established networking and security features and to solve, once and for all, the complexity and risks that has been plaguing IT for so long.

The enterprise networking and security market has seen no end to terms and acronyms. SASE, of course, is chief among them, but let us not forget SD-WAN, SSE, ZTNA, and Multi-Cloud Networking (MCN). Then we get into specific capabilities like CASB, DLP, SWG, RBI, FWaaS, and micro-segmentation. This alphabet soup of jargon can confuse even the most diligent and capable CISOs and CIOs, especially when vendors continually redefine and reclassify each category to fit their needs.

Today, we announced that Carlsberg, the world-famous brewer, has selected Cato SASE Cloud for its global deployment. It’s a massive SASE deployment spanning 200+ locations and 25,000 remote users worldwide, replacing a combination of MPLS services, VPN services, SD-WAN devices, remote access VPNs, and security appliances.

In the ever-evolving world of cybersecurity, enterprises are constantly seeking the most effective solutions to secure their networks and data. GigaOm’s Radar Report for Secure Service Access, GigaOm’s term for SASE, provides a comprehensive look at the industry, and for the second consecutive year, names Cato Networks a “Leader” and “Outperformer.” The recognition points to Cato’s continuous commitment to innovation and improvement.

If you’re starting your SASE evaluation journey, Gartner is here to assist. In a new helpful guide, they delineate how organizations can build their SASE strategy and shortlist vendors. In this blog post, we bring a short recap of their analysis. You can read the entire document here.

SD-WAN has enabled new technology opportunities for businesses. But not all organizations have adopted SD-WAN in the same manner or are having the same SD-WAN experience. As the market gravitates away from SD-WAN towards SASE, research and consulting firm EMA analyzed how businesses are managing this transition to SASE. In this blog post, we present the key findings from their report, titled “WAN Transformation with SD-WAN: Establishing a Mature Foundation for SASE Success”.

For as long as anyone can remember, organizations have had to balance 4 key areas when it comes to technology: security efficacy, cost, complexity, and user experience. The emergence of SASE and SSE brings new hope to be able to deliver fully in each of these areas, eliminating compromise; but not all architectures are truly up to the task. SASE represents the convergence of networking and security, with SSE being a stepping-stone to a complete single-vendor platform.

SASE = SD-WAN + SSE. This simple equation has become a staple of SASE marketing and thought leadership. It identifies two elements that underpin SASE, namely the network access technology (SD-WAN) and secure internet access (Security Service Edge (SSE)). The problem with this equation is that it is simply wrong. Here is why. What is missing from the equation? The answer is: a cloud network.

Should we be using multiple public cloud providers? As organizations continue to migrate applications and workloads to public cloud platforms, they often face the tough decision of sticking with a single provider or embracing multiple clouds. Using multiple cloud providers promises a variety of benefits including the ability to minimize vendor lock-in, leverage best-of-breed services, achieve cost advantages, and comply with data sovereignty rules.

David Heinemeier Hansson lays out the economic case for why application providers should leave the cloud in a recently published blog post. It’s a powerful argument that needs to be heard by IT vendors and IT buyers, whether they are purchasing cloud applications or SASE services. Hansson is the co-owner and CTO of 37Signals, which makes Basecamp, the project management software platform, and Hey, an email service.