Cato Networks launched a new program aimed at making managed secure access service edge (SASE) services accessible for small and midsize businesses.

Dubbed Cato SMB FlexPool, the offering features a streamlined customer onboarding experience that provides a partner-level pool of Cato licenses that can be scaled as demand grows.

Clients can provision customer accounts “instantly” and activate services through a repeatable self-service workflow. Designed for telecom operators and managed service providers (MSPs), partners can build their own customer-facing packages using the underlying capacity tailored to their market and go-to-market strategies.

“MSPs shouldn’t have to slow down customer deployments because of licensing and operational overhead,” Karl Soderlund, global channel chief at Cato Networks, explained. “SMB FlexPool aims to remove that friction with instant provisioning and flexible pooled licensing, enabling partners to activate new customers while maintaining full control of the customer experience.”

SMB FlexPool and its pooled licensing model are the latest in a growing number of offerings from Cato aimed at making IT procurement easier.

The vendor unveiled an à la carte iteration of its flagship platform in March in which customers could pick up individual modules, be they AI security, SD-WAN, or security service edge (SSE) without having to commit to the entire platform.

Its latest effort sees the vendor, recently recognized in Gartner’s SASE rankings, focus more on empowering partners through a “scalable foundation” to empower them to go to market faster and offer differentiated services.

Art Nichols, CTO of the Cato "Advanced Partner" Uniti Solutions, said SMB FlexPool “offers a more streamlined, scalable, and efficient way to deliver managed SASE to SMB customers.”

“Instead of managing separate licensing transactions for every new customer, we can provision services in seconds, bring customers online faster and keep our operations simple as our business expands,” Nichols noted. “This means our customers benefit from faster deployment, a smoother onboarding experience, and the confidence that their secure network services can scale seamlessly alongside their business.”