In the previous SASE blog, we examined general IT and business challenges companies faced when implementing a remote workforce. This blog takes a closer look at how IT leaders can apply SASE technology within different industries. The selected scenarios give a sample of the power of SASE application in education, financial services, government and healthcare.
VMware SASE solution capabilities
Remote workforces create a unique situation for IT departments. If all security functionality and application data reside at a corporate office or at several NOCs around the country, remote employees will experience user delay and throughput. To alleviate this problem, VMware’s SASE solution places the data and key networking elements closer to the edge using points of presence (PoPs).
SASE delivers applications and workloads in the cloud by extending software-defined networking and security to major IaaS and SaaS providers. Putting SASE PoPs closer to the users and end devices allows reliable access to the applications, optimizes latency and vastly improves the end user experience. VMware SASE’s PoPs provide a cloud-first approach, application quality assurance, intrinsic security and operational simplicity. The PoPs also deliver contextual access based on user identity, device location and security posture.
The VMware SASE solution has four main components:
- Secure access
- SD-WAN gateway
- Cloud web security
- Cloud firewall all in one cloud
These key components are augmented by Edge Network Intelligence, Orchestrator and Zscaler.
Applied SASE scenarios
It can be fun to talk about technology in theory and all the amazing things it could do, but the real excitement comes when the theory is applied to actual situations. Let’s look at how SASE can be applied across four key verticals: education, finance, government and healthcare. The following are great examples of how SASE helped different customers connect securely to the cloud and greatly improve network performance at the edge to accelerate digital business success, all without additional security hardware.
Tech applied: Enabling education with SASE
Many college campuses are still closed to students or are limiting the number of students on campus due to health and safety concerns. Educational institutions are rethinking how they can connect to students, regardless of their location.
Schools are emphasizing flexible and diversified classes with an increased focus on student success, all while upholding education standards and the school’s brand.
Remote students and teachers typically use multiple services from a variety of vendors for things such as chat, online services portal, collaboration tools, and voice and video meetings. This mix of technologies makes it complex to manage networking and security services.
SASE enables these education goals:
- Student care: On-demand classes, tutoring, personalized teaching
- Smart classes: Online learning leveraging virtual reality and augmented reality
- Staff effectiveness: Delegates analytics, statistics or repetitive task to chatbots, allowing staff to focus on student success
Tech applied: Enabling finance with SASE
Previously, it was thought that the sensitivity of financial information would prevent finance employees from ever taking their work away from the office. The past two years have shown that finance employees can work from home safely.
The financial sector must take every precaution when analyzing new technology and work paradigms. Finance companies must meet the level of service their customers expect, without compromising security. Plus, financial institutions must head off their competition and comply with stringent regulations. SASE plays a crucial role in addressing these requirements.
SASE enables these financial services scenarios:
- Customer care: Faster go-to-market for innovative services and catalogue enlargement
- IT modernization: Mobilize bank staff to better engage clients
- Improved employee experience: Allow an effective, flexible and secure work from home model.
Tech applied: Enabling government and emergency services with SASE
Government emergency services, such as the police, fire and public safety departments, depend on reliable network access to properly respond and protect their citizens. Secure communications and anytime database access are crucial for these departments. A failure could result in a tragedy.
A faster, more secure network boosts productivity and helps public safety departments efficiently manage emergency responses. SASE provides necessary reliability. This technology also allows organizations to reduce operating expenses by simplifying integration and deployment of network and security services across multiple sites.
SASE enables the following government services:
- Customer service: Improve case management, reduce response time
- Digital government: Improve agency workflows, strengthen cybersecurity
- Data protection: Protect confidential users’ information
- Emergency support: Efficient response time and faster access to critical apps and data due to closer proximity to the user
Tech applied: Enabling healthcare with SASE
Remote patient services grew tremendously since last year. Telemedicine has become a go-to solution for patients. Patients can upload health data using smart devices and/or an online portal to a doctor’s database. Advanced technologies allow doctors to provide guidance, medical treatments and advice to patients without seeing the patient in person.
Fast and secure connectivity is mandatory to provide a high level of reliability. This need for data at the doctor’s fingertips must be balanced with government regulations like HIPPA. Ransomware and cybercrime attacks against hospitals are on the rise, as stolen medical records are extremely valuable on the dark web.
SASE enables the following healthcare scenarios:
- Remote radiology: Medical imaging and diagnostics
- Patient care: Assisted or automated diagnosis for early disease detection
- Customer service: Planning, booking, pricing, insurance management
- Remote assessment monitoring: Secure and reliable patient monitoring through connected Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) devices
SASE: Technology to explore and apply
SASE’s versatility and security features benefit a wide range of business verticals. We explored how technology can be applied in education, healthcare, finance and within the government; however, this is just a small sample of what SASE can do. Any company can benefit from reduced architecture complexity, flexible integration, optimized user experience, customer satisfaction, improved performance, enhanced security and improved IT operational efficiency.
The scenarios for SASE span the core network, branches, remote users, devices, IoT and edge computing, among others. Every organization is unique, but a bit of analysis can quickly determine if SASE can add value to the business and what type of ROI the company can expect.
To learn more about how VMware and SASE can benefit you, please visit our website or contact us today.
