Many enterprises have turned away from traditional VPNs and are looking to zero-trust network access (ZTNA) to address remote access, but the approach many are taking is "riddled with problems," according to Prosimo co-founder and CEO Ramesh Prabagaran.

Prabagaran said one of Prosimo's assumptions is that the traditional ZTNA model is a poorly-architected framework because it doesn’t utilize cloud-native services and optimized flows using hyperscaler backbones, like that of Amazon Web Services (AWS) and services such as AWS Transit Gateway, AWS Cloud WAN, AWS Global Accelerator, and AWS PrivateLink. Traditional ZTNA approaches instead take traffic to the vendor "cloud-first" to enforce policies and bring it back to a hyperscaler region close to the application.

The goal should be to “essentially bring [hyperscaler] presence as close as possible to the users. So don't bring any middle-mile solution of sorts between the user and the cloud,” Prabagaran added.

Additionally, enterprises should avoid deploying ZTNA with a “broad brush, like with a full-on VPN replacement.”

“Start off with the workloads, and then provide private access to those workloads, and then slowly expand out from there,” he said.

AWS introduced its VPN-less, ZTNA-like Verified Access secure connectivity service during its re:Invent 2022 show. The service is designed to provide secure access to corporate applications running on AWS without the need for a VPN while enforcing zero-trust principles.

Prosimo is now working with the hyperscaler to provide end-to-end orchestration with additional controls for the AWS Verified Access so users can tap into the service without having to re-architect their existing clouds. The Prosimo platform also provides performance optimization using the AWS backbone, intelligent routing, and application services.

Posture and performance to become ZTNA priority

Given that there are dozens of players in the ZTNA market and cloud providers are now also touting ZTNA capabilities, Prabagaran expects ZTNA to become a "feature addition."

“With all of the players we feel this is fast becoming a commodity functionality,” he explained. “An important but commodity functionality that everybody just needs to have, just like Wi-Fi you need in the office.”

While ZTNA won’t lose relevance, Prabagaran predicts focus will shift to features and capabilities that can be added on top of a ZTNA framework.

“What's going to distinguish ZTNA is kind of a layer above that, which could be rotating toward performance, it could be rotating toward posture, it could be rotating toward operational ease, or maybe just how I want to do things in cloud,” he noted.

As enterprises move away from traditional access models to ZTNA, Prabagaran said “every single one of them has run into a problem with respect to posture and performance. ... At the core, ZTNA just gives private access to applications, but if you do not address the need of performance and posture, then that problem is not solved properly."