Brewing beer in the modern world isn't just about hops and wheat, it's also about having network connectivity and security.

Carlsberg Group, one of the largest brewers in the world, announced today that it is using Cato Networks to help enable its global SASE deployment. Carlsberg Group was founded in 1847 and has more than 140 different brands under its ownership. The brewer, which has its roots in Copenhagen, Denmark, is global today with locations across Europe and Asia. All told, the Carlsberg Group network spans more than 200 locations and 25,000 remote users. Keeping secure access to that network is no small task.

Tal Arad, CISO and head of technology at Carlsberg Group, explained to SDxCentral that previously, depending on the region, locations were connected via legacy MPLS services, SD-WAN, or site-to-site VPNs. He noted there was a mix of local security appliances protecting locations. Remote users connected via either a traditional VPN, SD-WAN private access or application-centric access.

"Like every other enterprise, the complexity of managing different security technologies, which are separate from the network stack, was putting quite a strain on our capability to change, clean up, and keep our security up to date," Arad told SDxCentral. "We could have been doing a change on the security side and, without realizing it at the time, causing quite an issue on the operational side."

"The marriage of security and networking with SASE, hopefully, will be a happy one," he added.

There is no shortage of vendors providing SASE capabilities in the market today.

The process of figuring it all out took time and effort that involved reading through thousands of pages, attending or watching multiple workshops, and asking prospective vendors lots of questions. Beyond just reading and listening to what the vendors promised about SASE, Carlsberg actually tested capabilities as well.

Arad said Carlsberg established several test networks with the shortlisted candidates, in Europe and Asia, to verify everything that was promised actually worked. In addition to the operational testing, he said Carlsberg ran a breach and attack simulator on the stack with all security options disabled, then enabled, to try and evaluate the security capabilities of the SASE kit from the different vendors.

"The security tests we conducted when the Cato SASE Cloud features were off and on showed a significant difference between these options," he said. "It’s literally a switch you throw from off to on; I wish Cato had a physical switch that involves klaxons and flashing lights, but you can’t have it all."

Another key winning criteria for Carlsberg's SASE selection was the fact that Cato owns its hardware, which Arad said makes it simpler and significantly faster to deploy and use than other competing solutions. He emphasized that the fact that Cato works as promised is a big win, especially since network professionals are almost always a bit cynical about technology promises.

It's still early in the deployment for Carlsberg Group as the Cato Network SASE platform is rolled out and, as such, Arad isn't quite yet ready to detail what's next for network security at his organization.

"Let us finish deploying the Cato SASE Cloud first, and then we can sit down with one of our excellent beers and figure out the next steps," he said.