Secure access service edge (SASE) is still Gartner’s golden child technology, with expectations that total worldwide end-user spending on SASE will reach $9.2 billion in 2023, marking a 39% increase from 2022.

Gartner also announced its single-vendor SASE leaders. The firm’s definition specifies that a complete SASE offering combines network edge capabilities like SD-WAN, and a set of cloud-centric security services edge (SSE) capabilities, including secure web access gateway (SWG), Cloud Access Security Broker, firewall-as-a-service (FWaaS), and zero-trust network access (ZTNA).

While many vendors still can only supply components of SASE, Gartner recognized nine that offer complete solutions with both networking and SSE capabilities – Cato Networks, Cisco, Citrix, Forcepoint, Fortinet, Netskope, Palo Alto Networks, Versa Networks, and VMware.

Executives from these companies gave SDxCentral their predictions for what 2023 has in store for the SASE market and technologies.

Shlomo Kramer, CEO, Cato Networks

“Just as COVID caused a massive acceleration in digital transformation projects, the recession will accelerate security consolidation. Numerous studies indicate that enterprises maintain dozens of security tools. And with so many security tools, controls are fragmented resulting in reduced visibility; operational overhead increases with the need for extra personnel and skills to master the various tools; and gaps between tools are created leaving the cracks through which attackers can infiltrate. Most companies (75%) expect to reduce the number of security vendors they use, replacing them with one, converged security platform.

Due to recessionary factors, IT staff will be pressured more than ever to do more with less, accelerating the move toward 'as-a-service' models. Numerous reports indicate that this recession will be unusual, not marked by the unemployment typical of a recession. But if layoffs are not part of the recession-coping toolbox, organizations will need to find other ways to reduce costs. Adoption of as-a-service models enables IT teams to tap expertise and tools that otherwise would be difficult to onboard.”

Raj Chopra, SVP, Cisco Secure

“High-performance and consistent experience has become a given expectation from both IT and end users. In 2023, we will see customers' expectations extend to also demand more simplified and smarter user experiences, which in many cases will mean more customers moving to single-vendor SASE solutions. As a result, we will see an increase in common, unified policies, removing the onus from the user to harmonize various policy engines across products themselves. Not only will this simplify the experience for users, but also reduce translation errors and the associated risks.”

Jim Fulton, VP of Product, Forcepoint

“Organizations will further optimize their networking and security for the merging hybrid workforce, and SASE will continue its move into the mainstream as the architecture of choice for those initiatives.

The distinction between single-vendor SASE solutions (SD-WAN and SSE from the same vendor) versus separate SD-WAN and SSE providers will become more prominent as organizations look for ways to simplify their operations during an economic downturn. We will see organizations continue to consolidate vendors and demand platforms that are geared toward reducing the operational burden on security and networking teams, especially during a rocky economy.

Replacing VPNs with ZTNA will accelerate as organizations look to reduce costs and boost control over access to business resources. The role of data security in SASE will continue to grow as organizations realize that it’s not enough to protect how users get to the web, cloud, and private apps. Keeping control of what they do with data after they get there is just as important.”

Nirav Shah, VP of Products, Fortinet

“As the SASE market matures, CIOs will increasingly stop looking at SASE in a silo and examine it as part of their entire infrastructure. We don’t see a cloud-only world in the future, likewise we don’t see an on-premises-only world. SASE is an important cloud-delivered architecture for securing remote access, but it’s important to look at the reality of how most enterprises are building hybrid networks to meet their business needs. That means building a SASE architecture – what is essentially the convergence of cloud-delivered networking and security technologies – with products that are able to seamlessly integrate with each other and with converged on-premises solutions. This ensures enterprises preserve their existing on-premises investments (including SD-WAN investments), and prevents having to completely re-architect everything you already have deployed.

Thinking that convergence only needs to be in the cloud or convergence only needs to be on-premises when you have a hybrid network is not the right way to think – you need both. Many organizations today struggle with complexity because they have taken a piecemeal approach, using disparate tools from multiple vendors to support their security and connectivity needs at headquarters, branch offices, and remote workforce. In 2023, we’ll see more and more CIOs prioritizing consolidation by choosing solutions that can seamlessly integrate across both cloud and on-prem to ensure consistent security and a consistent user experience no matter where users or applications are distributed. We see this same trend manifesting in how CIOs are evaluating ZTNA solutions.”

Naveen Palavalli, VP of Product GTM Strategy, Netskope

“2022 was a challenging year for many organizations, but many are anticipating that 2023 will see continued economic headwinds. As a result, organizations will be looking especially close at how SASE can enable them to continue growing in an optimized, efficient manner. SASE features a number of consolidation and cost-savings benefits, and these will likely feature more heavily in business cases presented to the CIO and executive decision makers, in addition to traditional SASE value drivers like superior user experience or comprehensive security.

Another trend we will see more of in 2023 is the increased adoption of single-vendor SASE solutions by larger organizations. Until recently, these organizations looked primarily at dual-vendor SASE solutions based upon mature, trusted, cloud security platforms and established SD- WAN offerings. However, as complete, robust single-vendor solutions emerge that match or exceed the functionality of their dual-vendor counterparts, these will increase in popularity and market acceptance over the course of the year.

Finally, in 2023, organizations will look to apply some of the evolutionary principles introduced by ZTNA – a fundamental part of SASE – and apply them to the Local Area Network. ZTNA provided remote workers with faster, more secure access to private applications.”

Kumar Ramachandran, SVP Products - Network Security, Palo Alto Networks

“With the recent emergence of multiple single-vendor SASE offerings, these solutions will become preferred over multi-vendor solutions (a.k.a. mix-and-match SASE). This will be driven by increased awareness of the shortcomings of mix- and-match SASE and new capabilities coming from more advanced single-vendor solutions.

Since its introduction earlier this year, ZTNA 2.0 has been gaining traction amongst security-minded early adopters. We expect ZTNA 2.0 to go mainstream in 2023.

The convergence of networking and security solutions, combined with artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), will enable IT teams to predict and resolve issues with applications, networks, and security posture before they cause business disruptions. These cutting-edge capabilities will drive increased productivity and enable IT organizations to go from a reactive to a proactive posture.”

Kelly Ahuja, CEO, Versa Networks

“While the market was initially driven by remote user access to cloud workloads, SASE has emerged as the technology to protect and connect across the entire Enterprise footprint. Enterprises are seeking extensible solutions as opposed to point products or technologies that they must integrate themselves. In 2023, SASE solutions that protect Enterprise resources while delivering the optimal user/device-to-app or app-to-app experience, simplify policy definition, and add lifecycle management will emerge and establish themselves as the way of future.

SASE has quickly evolved from a set of discrete technologies or functions to a future state blueprint for integrating security and networking. Early adopter enterprises have started their journey to this future state and are charting the course to nirvana. Lessons learned from these early adopters will drive the strategy of the late majority. Their choice of a platform approach versus a portfolio approach will be driven by cost, agility, and operational flexibility. The market opportunity is bigger than it has ever been.”

Karl Brown, Senior Director, VMware

“Enterprise lines of business and operational technology teams are developing new applications or modernizing legacy applications to meet their business objectives. These new applications will collect and process volumes of ephemeral data from a large number and wide array of devices in near real-time. This volume of data and requirements for low latency will mean backhauling data to a cloud or traditional data center is not economically or technically feasible. Thus, requirements for SD-WAN and SASE will expand to encompass several factors.

Connectivity to the edge: Much like connectivity to the cloud, applications at the edge will require a low-latency, secure, and resilient network infrastructure. Further, many new intelligent endpoints will require 5G or 4G LTE LAN connectivity for enhanced mobility, coverage, performance, and reliability.

Compute at the edge: Applications at the edge will require compute capabilities. Deploying dedicated servers is not feasible in many locations because they add to the operational burden while posing security risks. Instead, enterprises should look for SD-WAN and SASE solutions that can host edge applications.

Intelligence about the edge: An understanding of Application performance at the edge requires AI-assisted tools given the large volume of endpoints and the increased number of workloads. Therefore AIOps-based functionality is a requirement for SD-WAN and SASE management to function optimally.”

Citrix responded to SDxCentral saying they will be less focused on SASE moving forward, but “rather SSE which is more applicable to their portfolio.” Predictions from Cisco have been added since this article was originally published.

Editor's Note: The responses have been lightly edited to adhere to SDxCentral style.