The secure access service edge (SASE) concept emerged to bring flexibility and scalability to cloud-based security. However, today's enterprises are still challenged by the complexity of managing security solutions and the security talent shortages, which is why many are turning to managed SASE solutions from managed security service providers (MSSPs) such as GTT Communications, according to the vendor.

The dilemma between choosing a direct solution from SASE vendors or a managed SASE solution provided by MSSPs is influenced by several factors, predominantly the in-house IT and security team's capacity, Erik Nordquist, global managed security product director at GTT, told SDxCentral.

“If they have a very robust IT and security team, they may choose to deal with the vendor directly and do it all themselves, but that can be a big lift, right? And if they haven't done kind of a migration like that before, they could present a lot of challenges them,” he said.

This is where MSSPs GTT steps in, offering a managed service that includes not just the SASE technology from the vendor, but also the experience, a better return on investment and 24/7 availability, Nordquist boasted.

“The benefit we have over a lot of IT and security teams is we've done thousands of deployments of all flavors, [including] cloud security, on-prem [security], SD-WAN, etc. And so we learn a lot by having so many repetitions,” he said. “It's a team of people for a fraction of the cost of even hiring one security professional who certainly cannot do everything and definitely can't do it all the time.”

However, “we're not here to replace IT teams or security teams we're here to enhance them,” Nordquist added.

GTT’s managed SASE portfolio offers both single-vendor and dual-vendor solutions partnering with SASE and SD-WAN providers such as Fortinet, Palo Alto Networks, HPE Aruba and Broadcom VMware.

“When you have a managed services provider like a GTT having multiple vendors in the mix, GTT takes over a lot of that complexity for them,” Nordquist said.

He added that GTT can help manage the complexity of transitioning from on-premises firewalls and other security and networking services to the cloud-based SASE, as well as maintain and monitor the solution.

In addition, moving security off the premises to the cloud can cause some delays. However, using GTT's managed security service edge (SSE) solution helps address this problem, especially for customers already using the vendor’s services, Nordquist said.

“They're already on our network. So we basically send their traffic to a cloud security instance, oftentimes, there's no added latency at all,” he added.

The demand for managed SASE is driven by two main factors: the desire to enhance security postures and the cybersecurity skills gap.

“We definitely see a lot of customers very interested in SASE and the different elements, ZTNA specifically, whether or not they're ready for that job yet is in question,” Nordquist points out. “They want to be more secure. They want to enhance their security posture, and that is partially a technology question.”

“But the other piece is they don't necessarily have a lot of time to deal with this and want help and want added expertise that they may not have,” he added. “The cybersecurity skills gap is real. Finding, keeping, maintaining [and] training skilled security professionals is a challenge.”