SASE & SSE for
people who deploy it.
Architecture guides, vendor comparisons, deployment playbooks. No bullshit.
What is SASE?
Secure Access Service Edge converges networking and security into a single cloud-delivered service. Instead of backhauling traffic to a data center, SASE pushes policy enforcement to globally distributed PoPs close to users.
Application-aware routing, path selection, WAN optimization. Replaces MPLS.
Cloud-delivered security: web gateway, SaaS broker, zero trust access. Plus FWaaS, DLP, and DEM.
Gartner 2019 · $3B quarterly revenue Q3 2025, 21% YoY · Dell'Oro Group
SSE & Zero Trust
SSE
Security Service Edge is SASE minus SD-WAN. Three core pillars — SWG, CASB, and ZTNA — delivered from the cloud. Defined by Gartner in 2021. Most organizations start here because it secures remote users without rearchitecting the WAN.
Secure remote users now. SD-WAN already works. Budget constrained. Replacing VPN or legacy proxies.
Network refresh. Branch connectivity + security. Unified policy. MPLS contracts expiring.
Zero Trust
Zero Trust is the philosophy — never trust, always verify. SASE is the architecture that delivers it. ZTNA is the specific component that bridges the two: identity-based, per-app access with continuous posture verification.
| Zero Trust | Philosophy | Never trust, always verify |
| SASE | Architecture | Networking + security, cloud-delivered |
| ZTNA | Component | Per-app access based on identity + posture |
Five scenarios driving adoption
Employees use ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini daily. CASB + DLP inspect prompts inline, block sensitive data uploads, and enforce acceptable-use policies before they reach the model.
MPLS renewals hitting 2026. SD-WAN + SSE replaces hub-and-spoke at 40–60% savings. Direct internet breakout for SaaS, encrypted overlay for private apps.
Insurers now require ZTNA, MFA, and endpoint posture checks. SASE gives you all three from one platform with audit-ready logs for renewal evidence.
EU NIS2 and DORA mandate network segmentation, incident reporting, and supply-chain security. SASE centralizes policy, logging, and DLP across all traffic flows.
After a breach, the board mandates Zero Trust. ZTNA eliminates lateral movement, SWG inspects all traffic, and DEM proves security isn’t degrading user experience.
Core components
Three SSE core pillars plus three extended capabilities. Click any to read the deep dive.
Zero Trust Network Access brokers individual, authenticated connections between a user and a specific application, based on the user's verified identity and the device's real-time security posture. Unlike VPN, which grants network-level access to an entire subnet, ZTNA creates a one-to-one micro-tunnel from the user's endpoint to a single application endpoint.
Read deep dive →A Secure Web Gateway is a cloud-delivered web proxy that intercepts, decrypts, inspects, and re-encrypts all HTTP and HTTPS traffic between users and the internet. It replaces on-premises proxy appliances with globally distributed inspection points that apply URL categorization against databases of billions of classified URLs, real-time malware scanning using signature-based and behavioral engines, file sandboxing for zero-day threat detection, content filtering by category and risk level, and acceptable use policy enforcement.
Read deep dive →A Cloud Access Security Broker is a security policy enforcement point positioned between enterprise users and cloud service providers. It provides visibility into cloud application usage, data protection for information stored in and transiting through SaaS applications, threat protection against cloud-based attack vectors like OAuth token abuse and account takeover, and compliance enforcement for regulatory requirements governing data residency, access control, and sharing.
Read deep dive →Firewall as a Service is a cloud-delivered network security service that applies Layer 3 through Layer 7 inspection to all network traffic, not just web traffic. It performs stateful packet inspection, application identification, intrusion prevention and detection (IPS/IDS), DNS security, protocol enforcement, and network-level microsegmentation from globally distributed cloud Points of Presence.
Read deep dive →Data Loss Prevention identifies sensitive data in transit across the network, at rest in cloud applications, and in use on endpoints, then enforces policies that prevent unauthorized disclosure, exfiltration, or mishandling of that data. DLP uses multiple detection techniques in combination: regular expression pattern matching identifies structured data like credit card numbers (PCI), Social Security numbers (PII), medical record numbers (PHI), and API keys.
Read deep dive →Digital Experience Monitoring provides end-to-end visibility into the performance of every network segment between a user's endpoint and the application they are accessing. It decomposes the path into discrete, measurable hops: endpoint to local network, local network to ISP, ISP to SASE PoP, SASE PoP to application, and application response time.
Read deep dive →Vendor comparison
From deployment experience, not marketing decks.
Cisco delivers the strongest SSE-first SASE story in the market, backed by threat intelligence depth that no competitor can replicate.
Full review →Fortinet FortiSASE is the right choice when SD-WAN is the primary requirement and SSE is the secondary concern.
Full review →Palo Alto Prisma SASE earns its Gartner Leadership position through genuine security depth that no other SASE vendor matches.
Full review →Check Point Harmony SASE occupies a unique position: it is simultaneously the most innovative (hybrid architecture) and the least mature (SD-WAN, MSP tooling) SASE offering among the four vendors reviewed.
Full review →Which vendor for which scenario?
Where to start
Printable PDF — tasks, timelines, watch-outs per phase.