The secure access service edge (SASE) market is showing no signs of slowing down, according to research firm 650 Group, which reported that total revenues for the third quarter grew 50% year over year for “SASE capable” and 37% year-over-year for “SASE deployed.”

Analyst Chris DePuy explained that in the context of the SASE market, "SASE capable" refers to vendors that have the capabilities to offer a full suite of SASE-related products and services – including features such as SD-WAN, cloud access security broker (CASB), zero trust, and firewall-as-a-service (FWaaS) – but do not provide a unified SASE solution.

"SASE deployed," or what some call unified SASE – refers to the actual deployment of a full suite of SASE-related products and services by a single vendor – or the extent to which customers are using a single vendor to provide all of the SASE-related products and services they need rather than piecing together a solution from multiple vendors.

DePuy noted 650 Group anticipates the SASE deployed share of the market will grow “much faster” than that of SASE capable, as demand for full suite, single-vendor SASE solutions will continue to grow in the future.

“Vendors with strong market share positions in SD-WAN fare well in our SASE market share calculations,” Depuy told SDxCentral in an email. “We see the merging of networking and security as a fundamental industry shift and that is what is encompassed in terminologies like SASE.”

A “strong presence in cloud-based security” is also becoming increasingly important in standing out in the SASE market, he added.

According to the 650 Group report, Versa Networks is the top vendor offering a full-suite, single-vendor deployed SASE – with Cisco coming in second, and Fortinet tied with Palo Alto Networks for third.

“However, if we add up all the main constituents of SASE, or what we call SASE-capable, the vendor list is slightly different, with Cisco, Zscaler, and Palo Alto [Networks] leading the list," DePuy explained.

DePuy added that as the number of customers seeking full-suite, single-vendor SASE solutions steadily rises, there may be a convergence of deployed and capable solutions over time.

"We expect that, over time, customers will require single vendors to deliver an overall SASE solution to them, so that deployed share begins to converge on capable share, as we’ve defined it," he said. "But for now, at this relatively early stage, these share statistics differ somewhat."

DePuy said that the growth rates of individual SASE components such as SD-WAN, zero trust, cloud CASB, and FWaaS are starting to coincide with the overall growth of the SASE-deployed market.

"We anticipate more corporate mergers in the future as zero trust, SD-WAN, and CASB becomes a hole in various vendors’ portfolios," he wrote.

Looking ahead to 2023, 650 Group also predicts that vendor focus on delivering services (as opposed to products) will accelerate.

“This is because some vendors have been selling hardware to service provider partners who then turn around and offer SASE services to customers,” DePuy noted. “We expect that some of these vendors will further emphasize selling cloud-based, subscription services either directly to customers or indirectly through selling partners. which include managed service providers, valued added resellers, and service providers.”