The Best SASE SD-WAN Vendors: Secure Remote Access

The best SASE (Secure Access Service Edge), SD-WAN vendors all have this in common: Secure Remote Access.

In the video below, Mike details the benefits that Secure Remote Access, delivers to companies, when included with a SASE SD-WAN solution. He mentioned several features, such as secure, MFA login from a browser, cloud-based policies and filtering, and application optimization.

Want Mike’s recommendations on the best SASE SD-WAN vendors for your company to quote? Click the button below to ask him today.

About Mike

Mike Smith is the Founder and President of AeroCom and has been helping companies with telecom and cloud services since 1999. He has been the recipient of numerous business telecommunications industry awards, including being recognized as one of the top 40 business people in Orange County, CA., under 40 years old. You can also hear him as the host of the popular Information Technology podcast, ITsmiths with Mike Smith. Follow Mike on YouTube, LinkedIn, Reddit and SpiceWorks.

Transcript

Let’s talk about SD-WAN, specifically SASE. No, I’m not talking about a bad attitude.

What I’m talking about is Secure Access Service Edge. It’s a new term out there that basically is if you look at some of my other videos when I talk about SD-WAN service providers that are cloud-enabled that also include built-in next-gen security in the cloud, that is SASE. So they made up a new term for it, it’s out there, there’s a lot of companies claiming that they’re SASE providers now of course because they don’t want to be left out but it’s really about cloud-enabled, SD-WAN solutions with next-gen security in the cloud.

All right, so the thing is though about SD-WAN, what I wanted to make a video about is is it just for companies with multiple locations and the answer to that is no and the reason why is … there’s many reasons why, but one of the big reasons why is SD-WAN can really help secure remote users. It’s a great solution not only for large sites, it’s also a great solution to make sure that your remote users are coming into the network securely.

Want a faster answer?

But before I get too deep into that, really quick, if you want to know which SD-WAN service providers your company should be quoting, don’t google it, you’ll be spending hours doing it and you’ll probably end up with the wrong companies. Instead, just reach out and contact me, via email or phone (714.593.0011). I’m a broker for all these companies and I can pair you up with the right vendors to quote. More information on that at the end of the video.

Access the network, not a single site

Okay, the first thing is that if your company deploys SASE and you sign up to add remote users to the environment, it’s nice because it gives those remote users a way to securely access the network. So instead of having to VPN back to a single site, all of your users can securely access the network itself via their tablet or laptop or any other remote device. So where before you had to have those users VPN to a single site, now those users are actually signing into the SD-WAN network itself, and it’s secure. So that’s a big advantage right away.

Clientless Login

Another thing that’s cool about it is that it can be client or clientless login. So users can either log in through a browser into the network, or if you have … Some vendors have a downloadable app that you can download on to different devices and they can log in that way so either way it’s real easy for them to get on and they all use multifactor authentication to log into the network. So that’s pretty cool. So again, ease of use. You can log in any way you wish and it’s all multifactor authentication.

Lower Latency

Another thing that’s cool about remote access is that instead of users logging in and having to tunnel all the way back to one location, they’re going to actually connect to the nearest point of presence of that SD-WAN service provider. So for instance, SD-WAN service providers often have PoPs set up, which are data centers set up all throughout the United States or even globally, depending on the service provider. So if you have remote users that are traveling around or may be located in different places all across the globe, instead of having them have to log in all the way back to your network at your headquarters, they’re actually going to connect directly to the nearest PoP of that SD-WAN service provider. So what’s that do? Obviously that’s going to reduce latency and packet loss and all types of cool stuff. So it’s going to make it a higher quality connection for all of those users.

Inspect and Filter all Network Traffic

Another cool thing is all the network traffic is going to be inspected by the full stack of security from that SASE vendor. So you’re able to really inspect all network traffic with full packet capture, all that stuff can be expected and filtered, as well as you can shut down certain applications. So you could only allow certain applications on the network, and disallow all other applications. So obviously a big one there for shadow IT.

Application Performance

And the final one is application acceleration. So the cool thing about SASE with remote users is that it can automatically accelerate those users’ applications that they’re using through doing things like TCP proxy, you might want to watch my video on that one, as well as prioritizing traffic for both inbound and outbound internet traffic, doing traffic shaping, all kinds of cool stuff. So all that is going to accelerate the application, it’s going to make the applications perform better, especially if you’re doing anything with video or large file sizes, things like that. That’s going to make those applications perform a lot better.

Want some SASE recommendations?

So I hope the video was hopeful. Again, if you want to know the best vendors you should be quoting for a SASE solution, or any type of SD-WAN solution, don’t start searching the internet for it. You’re just going to spend hours doing it and you’ll probably end up with the wrong vendors anyway. Instead, this is my job. I’m a broker for all the major service providers for this type of solution. So just reach out, contact me via email or phone (714.593.0011), I’ll ask you a few questions and based on that information, I’ll pair you up with the best small handful of vendors that you should be quoting and I’ll arrange the demos for you, oversee the quoting process, all that good stuff. And the nice thing is if you find something that you like and your company purchases it, that service provider will pay me my broker fee. So that’s how I make money, you don’t have to pay me at all, so there’s absolutely no excuse not to at least ask me for some advice.

Again, I hope you liked the video, I hope it was helpful. If so, don’t forget to hit the like button and subscribe to the channel and I’ll catch you on the next one.