Apcela adds SASE capabilities to edge security, network services platform
Software-defined, cloud-optimized network services innovator Apcela announced Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) as a part of the Arcus Secure platform, which enables enterprises to distribute security to the edge.
SASE is Gartner’s name for secure access service edge. For Apcela, this is as the combination of SD-WAN capabilities with a number of security services that are primarily delivered through a cloud-based delivery model. In short, a SASE offering helps simplify network management by offering highly customizable policy-based control that can be tailored by user identity, session context, and application needs for performance and security – and it’s delivered from the cloud.
Kunal Thakkar, Head of Solutions Engineering at Apcela, says that “A Secure Access Solution is the marriage between network and security and delivers many critical functions such as Firewall as a Service, Data Loss Prevention, Web Application Firewall, Zero Trust Network Access, and more.”
According to Gartner experts Neil MacDonald, Lawrence Orans, Joe Skorupa, “SASE is driven by enterprise digital business transformation: the adoption of cloud-based services by distributed and mobile workforces; edge computing and business continuity plans that must include flexible, anywhere, anytime, secure remote access…By 2024, at least 40% of enterprises will have explicit strategies to adopt SASE, up from less than 1% at year-end 2018.”
At the center of Apcela’s solution is the Arcus Platform, a software-defined approach to the multi-cloud environment which consists of Arcus Connect, Arcus Secure, and Arcus Intelligence. Arcus Secure, a security layer that shifts the security stack from the data center to the cloud, operates as a plug and play platform for SASE. The API is integrated with Arcus Intelligence in order to offer a holistic network security platform complete with automation and network visibility.
The Arcus Platform relies on AppHubs, virtual data centers in the cloud. Instead of having one or two premise-based data centers per region, we manage a dynamic, global footprint of over 60 AppHubs around the world. Instead of taking months or years to build out, we can stand-up a customer in days. Additionally, proximity to end users is key when it comes to application performance. AppHubs within Apcela Arcus provide the framework that enables us to deliver a software-defined, cloud optimized network – and that includes SASE. This allows SASE to truly exist at the edge – rather than deployed natively in public cloud, which can be repetitive and cost-prohibitive.
In conjunction with Arcus Secure and the globally distributed AppHubs in key geographies, Apcela’s portfolio of supported SD-WAN technologies and Remote Access Solutions, such as Cisco AnyConnect and Palo Alto Networks Global Protect, provide verity of powerful options for the customers to on-ramp their users and sites in an encrypted and secure manner to a proximate Apcela AppHub. This focus on ‘best of breed’ vendors over ‘single-pass solutions’ is one aspect that sets Apcela’s solution apart from other SASE vendors.
“Apcela’s Arcus platform is built ground-up to integrate various solutions in a modular manner depending on the needs and preferences of the customers who have existing investments. We can lift and shift their security stack to the cloud, and extend the reach of their firewalls,” says Thakkar. “SASE is the next step to optimizing network security in the cloud.”
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Article Topics
Apcela | edge security | firewall | networking | SASE | SD-WAN
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