Why are traditional VPNs not enough for a hybrid or work-from-anywhere workforce?
Traditional VPNs were designed for occasional remote access, not for a majority-remote or fully hybrid workforce. When large numbers of employees began working from anywhere, many organizations quickly discovered that VPNs created both performance and security challenges.
Key issues with traditional VPNs include:
1. **Not built to operate at scale**
VPNs struggle when a high percentage of employees connect remotely. This can lead to congestion, latency, and a poor user experience as all traffic is backhauled through a central location.
2. **Expanded attack surface**
VPNs typically provide broad network-level access once a user is authenticated. If an account is compromised, an attacker may gain wide access to internal resources, which is risky in a distributed environment.
3. **Outdated security model**
Many VPN deployments were never designed for today’s cloud-first, app-centric world. As more applications and services move to the cloud, routing all traffic through a VPN gateway becomes inefficient and can introduce security blind spots.
4. **Operational complexity for IT**
Managing and troubleshooting large VPN deployments is resource-intensive. For organizations already dealing with hybrid networks and limited IT staff, this adds to the burden.
These limitations are reflected in how leaders perceive risk: a recent survey cited in the text notes that **73% of security and business leaders feel their organizations are more exposed to risk due to remote work**.
A secure access service edge (SASE) approach is designed to address these gaps. Instead of relying on a single VPN tunnel, SASE provides:
- **Per-application, per-session access** rather than broad network access
- **Cloud-delivered security** that can inspect, detect, and respond to threats closer to the user
- **Zero-trust principles**, where access is based on identity, context, and continuous validation
In short, VPNs can still play a role, but they are no longer sufficient as the primary strategy for securing a hybrid or WFA workforce. A purpose-built SASE solution helps organizations rethink remote access with more granular control, better performance, and security that aligns with how people work today.
What should we look for when choosing a SASE solution for our hybrid workforce?
When choosing a SASE solution for a hybrid workforce, it helps to focus on a clear set of capabilities that address both security and user experience, while keeping operations manageable for IT. The text outlines eight core considerations you can use as a checklist:
1. **Single-vendor SASE approach**
- Aim for a platform that converges networking and security from one vendor.
- This simplifies deployment, policy management, and troubleshooting compared to stitching together multiple point products.
- Look for seamless interoperability across your distributed network so policies follow users and applications end to end, on-premises and in the cloud.
2. **Unified agent for multiple use cases**
- Prefer a single endpoint agent that can handle zero-trust network access (ZTNA), cloud access security broker (CASB), traffic redirection, and endpoint protection.
- This reduces complexity, avoids agent sprawl, and lowers ongoing maintenance costs.
3. **Secure internet access with enterprise-grade security**
- Go beyond an encrypted tunnel. The SASE platform should provide:
- Secure web gateway (SWG)
- URL filtering and DNS security
- Anti-phishing, antivirus, and antimalware
- Sandboxing and deep SSL inspection
- The goal is to follow and protect users wherever they are, inspecting traffic and blocking both known and unknown threats.
4. **Flexible, secure private access (ZTNA + SD-WAN/NGFW integration)**
- Ensure the solution can provide secure access to private applications in data centers and public clouds.
- Integrated ZTNA should grant **per-application access** based on identity and context, without requiring a persistent tunnel.
- Tight integration with SD-WAN and next-generation firewalls (NGFWs) helps steer traffic intelligently through SASE points of presence (POPs) for the best path and performance.
5. **Secure SaaS access and dual-mode CASB**
- As SaaS usage grows, your SASE solution should protect data in cloud apps whether users are on or off the corporate network.
- Look for **dual-mode CASB** (inline and API-based) to:
- Gain visibility into key SaaS applications
- Identify and manage risky or shadow IT apps
- Apply granular controls to protect sensitive data
- Detect and remediate malware in applications across both managed and unmanaged devices.
6. **Flexible consumption and simplified onboarding**
- Consider commercial and operational models, not just features.
- A good SASE platform supports an operating expenditure (OpEx) model with simple, tiered licensing so you can align costs with business growth.
- Centralized, streamlined onboarding and endpoint management help control ongoing costs and reduce administrative overhead.
7. **Cloud-based management, visibility, and DEM**
- Management should be cloud-based with comprehensive visibility, logging, analytics, and reporting.
- Integration across SASE components and with on-premises security tools is important to avoid siloed point solutions.
- **Digital experience monitoring (DEM)** is a key capability: it provides end-to-end visibility into user experience across endpoints, networks, and applications, helping you proactively troubleshoot and measure business impact.
8. **Deployment flexibility for all configurations**
- The solution should adapt to your architecture, including support for WLAN and LAN extenders and microbranches.
- You should be able to extend enterprise-grade protections—such as sandboxing, intrusion prevention, and URL filtering—to small sites and remote locations without deploying additional hardware appliances.
By using these eight areas as evaluation criteria, you can compare vendors more consistently and select a SASE platform that supports your hybrid workforce, strengthens security, and keeps operations manageable for your IT team.
How does a single-vendor SASE strategy help our IT team and end users?
A single-vendor SASE strategy is about consolidating networking and security into one platform so you can manage a hybrid workforce more efficiently and consistently. It has advantages for both IT teams and end users.
**Benefits for IT operations**
1. **Reduced solution sprawl**
- Instead of managing separate tools for VPN, SWG, CASB, ZTNA, and SD-WAN from different vendors, you work with one integrated platform.
- This consolidation helps avoid the complexity and overhead of maintaining multiple consoles, policies, and integrations.
2. **Simplified management and policy enforcement**
- A single interface for configuration, monitoring, and policy management makes it easier to maintain a consistent security posture.
- Policies can follow users and applications across cloud and on-premises environments, rather than stopping at the network edge.
3. **Operational efficiency with better visibility**
- Unified logging, analytics, and reporting across users, endpoints, and connections help reduce mean time to detection and remediation.
- Digital experience monitoring (DEM) capabilities give IT teams end-to-end visibility into performance and user experience, enabling proactive troubleshooting.
4. **Less strain on limited IT resources**
- Many organizations have small teams managing complex hybrid environments. A single-vendor SASE platform reduces manual work, custom scripts, and ad hoc integrations that can be hard to maintain.
- This allows IT to focus more on strategic initiatives and less on day-to-day firefighting.
**Benefits for end users**
1. **Consistent experience from anywhere**
- Whether employees are on campus, at a branch, at home, or on the road, they get similar levels of security and performance.
- The platform can automatically route traffic through the closest SASE POP and find the shortest, most secure path to applications.
2. **Application-specific, zero-trust access**
- Users connect directly to the applications they need, rather than to the entire network.
- Integrated ZTNA provides per-application access based on identity and context, which can reduce friction while still enforcing strong security.
3. **Fewer agents and fewer disruptions**
- With a unified agent that supports multiple use cases (ZTNA, CASB, traffic redirection, endpoint protection), users don’t have to juggle multiple clients or connection methods.
- This typically results in fewer conflicts, fewer support tickets, and a smoother day-to-day experience.
**Business impact in a hybrid world**
With an estimated **66% of the U.S. workforce continuing to work remotely**, hybrid work is no longer a temporary state. A single-vendor SASE approach helps organizations reimagine how they deliver secure access by:
- Providing consistent, cloud-delivered security for remote and on-site users
- Supporting a zero-trust architecture across the entire environment
- Reducing the need for manual integration work and complex troubleshooting
Ultimately, this approach helps your organization deliver secure, reliable access to critical applications while keeping the environment manageable for IT and predictable for users, wherever they work.
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