What this book covers

Chapter 1, SASE Introduction, introduces the term SASE, which was recently coined by Gartner and has been dominating IT projects to ensure cost savings and provide the needed security. The overall book provides a comprehensive foundational-level understanding of what SASE is, how to use SASE for success, how to learn through each evolution, where to find more information, and what the future of integrated secure access solutions looks like.

Chapter 2, SASE Human, discusses how understanding SASE requires a mix of skills not commonly found in one person. Due to the DevOps methodology’s acceleration of software releases, a rapid approach to learning just-in-time prior implementation within two to six weeks is required for success. Miss the mark on this requirement and your employer ends up in the news for having the latest security failure in the market. Using a managed service provider that has multiple teams in lockstep with the developers allows an organization to pivot on demand, transfer liability, and meet the urgent needs of the organization on demand.

Chapter 3, SASE Managed, discusses how SASE is a different approach that requires the experience level of even the best engineers to be reset to zero. Once at zero, it can take 6 weeks or 6 months to achieve basic proficiency with design, implementation, and troubleshooting skills. This “retooling” of the engineering team within a non-technology-focused enterprise offers little value to shareholders or customers. Outsourcing to the right managed services partner allows the technology to provide business value much more quickly and change at the speed of the market.

Chapter 4, SASE Orchestration, looks at automated service management across potentially multiple operator networks, including fulfillment, control, performance, assurance, usage, security, analytics, and policy capabilities, which are achieved programmatically through APIs that provide abstraction from the network technology used to deliver the service.

Chapter 5, SASE SD-WAN, discusses SD-WAN, which provides a virtual overlay network that enables application-aware, policy-driven, and orchestrated connectivity between SD-WAN user network interfaces and provides the logical construct of an layer three, virtual private, routed network for the subscriber that conveys IP packets between subscriber sites.

Chapter 6, SASE Detail, deep dives into what makes a service SASE.

Chapter 7, SASE Session, looks at SASE sessions, which are the core component of a SASE solution. Connecting the target actor to the subject actor, regardless of connection type, in a secure session is the heart of SASE.

Chapter 8, SASE Policy, looks at SASE policies, which are sets of rules applied to the SASE session that can be integrated into SASE connectivity quality mechanisms as well as other SASE service inputs. In the past, policy-based firewall or routing solutions have been prescriptive, requiring a comprehensive understanding of the five Ws prior to implementation. The policy was written in stone to guarantee specific results. With SASE, a dynamic environment that allows machine interaction on demand is required for the service to offer a relevant value proposition. This environment is precursive to AI and has to be designed in a manner that allows for AIOps.

Chapter 9, SASE Identity, discusses how a multidimensional approach is required to integrate IAM, context, situational components, time of day, location, and many other factors to deliver sub-millisecond active security that is continuously relevant.

Chapter 10, SASE Security, discusses how each software product developer uses security vertically. In SASE sessions, these vertical solutions must integrate to form the pervasive security that is required for the solution.

Chapter 11, SASE Services, looks at how there are many services that can be included in a SASE service. Every service is not mandatory for a solution to be considered SASE, but every SASE service should have the ability to be integrated into an overall comprehensive solution for a secure connective solution. Potential example services for inclusion are listed in this chapter and are expected to evolve as this market matures.

Chapter 12, SASE Management, looks at establishing, monitoring, and enforcing the configuration, policy, and performance of any given component of or the overall SASE solution.

Chapter 13, SASE Stakeholders, discusses how the foundation for SASE solutions requires identifying all stakeholders in the end solution. Each stakeholder contributes to the cross-functional matrix approach in the project planning phase to qualifying security requirements.

Chapter 14, SASE Case, provides examples for educational purposes, but they are by no means “recipe cards” for implementation strategies or architectural blueprints. The Use Case in turn provides a model that allows for templated approaches that are necessary for scaling the ultimate solution.

Chapter 15, SASE Design, discusses how designing for SASE involves concepts relating to DevOps, security, SD-WAN, and the cloud, and displaces legacy LAN/WAN design principles primarily due to the disaggregation of data plane and control plane activity.

Chapter 16, SASE Trust, discusses the Zero Trust Framework, which is a cybersecurity architecture where all actors are authenticated, authorized, and continuously validated before subjects are granted access, maintain access to, or perform operations on targets.

Chapter 17, SASE Learn, discusses how SASE is a moving target that does not stop evolving. How do you learn something that is perpetually becoming more complex daily? How do you get ahead of the requirements? Where can you independently research this subject? We will provide answers to these questions in this chapter.

Chapter 18, SASE DevOps, discusses the DevOps mindset, which is a rigorous systematic, fervent approach to continual improvement through secure development iteration. Through iteration, the production release of code improves in security, reliability, and user experience.

Chapter 19, SASE Forward, discusses how the future of SASE will be completely different from today. But like the history of x86 computer hardware, it is somewhat predictable, and therefore, a pattern emerges that allows us to stay diligent and ahead of the next change.

Chapter 20, SASE Bonus, discusses how designing SD-WAN solutions is much more complex than a routed WAN with an identical scale. Multiple circuits across routers may be integrated by configuring a dynamic routing protocol that uses all available routes. In contrast, each SD-WAN path must be considered independently, and policies should be designed to give the orchestrator as much autonomy as possible in selecting the ideal path for each packet or flow.