Last year, we experienced the biggest remote working experiment in human history. Although the transition to work from home (WFH) and its supporting technologies felt daunting to many, 83% of employers today admit that the shift to remote work has been successful for their company.1 Even during times of extreme uncertainty—riddled with new demands for the enterprise—organizations were able to navigate their way to this new normal. They did this, for one, by implementing a network platform that can meet their employees wherever they are, at that moment in time and at the next moment in time.
There’s something particularly interesting in what we have seen over this influential time span. Many of the core tenets that made cloud-based SD-WAN, cloud-based security and cloud-based remote access so impactful in preceding years were the same principles that allowed organizations to adapt to new WFH expectations. As a result, organizations are coming to terms that traditional legacy network and security architectures do not properly support the business needs of tomorrow.
The current tech around SD-WAN and security offers much more efficiency and makes it easier to implementcloud services and mixed environments. Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) is a textbook example of the natural evolution taking place in enterprise networking. SASE answers the day-to-day business demands in the modern world—it’s a framework constructed on the premise that, for maximum flexibility, cloud security should also come from the cloud. Additionally, it must adhere to the rules of the ever-changing application landscape we live in. The idea behind this framework is that information traffic is secured throughout its journey from a user to an application regardless of where the user is or where the app is hosted. In all, SASE is demonstrating its merit as more companies embrace this solution for a secure hybrid workforce.
I’ve made the point before that WFH is not the new normal; rather it’s uncertainty that is the new normal. Organizations have to factor in the vagueness of the future by embracing a platform that can meet them wherever they are, at any time. This can be done by welcoming work from anywhere (WFA) operating models.
In order to do so, there are five fundamental capabilities that WFA requires to be efficacious:
Now that we discussed the five fundamental capabilities required by WFA models, it’s equally as important to understand how these needs are currently being addressed in the current market. To understand this fully, check out the full panel discussion hosted by VMware here: SASE-Ready WAN Edge for the Work From Anywhere Era.
Resources
Enter your business location zip code below for business solutions in your area.
Find business zip code