Managed service provider cloudIT is now a Versa ACE Partner, tapping into the vendor’s unified secure access service edge (SASE) portfolio to provide a secure integration between the customer and cloudIT’s network. 

“We believe SASE is the next generation of security and what our clients are going to start asking for,” cloudIT CEO Vince Kent told SDxCentral. cloudIT went on the hunt for a SASE solution that would cater specifically to its small- and mid-sized clients, and considered “basically every security/SD-WAN offering that was out there” before settling on Versa. 

Kent said in an announcement that Versa is "the clear choice when it comes to supporting clients' disparate work forces."

cloudIT had previously used Cisco Meraki for its SD-WAN and security offering, but Kent explained that since cloudIT runs three of its own data centers as an IT provider, many of its clients are looking for integrated solutions. “Meraki just didn't really have a good virtual appliance, which made the data center component challenging,” he added. 

A key requirement for cloudIT is the ability for clients to have legacy options. “Cato, as an example, one of their main drawbacks is it's all SASE or nothing,” Kent noted. “Versa can not only meet the newer demands of our client base, but also satisfy some of the legacy requirements.”

Kent said another piece of deciding on the partnership was Versa Titan, a cloud-managed SD-WAN and SD-Security solution that he said is a “bit of a newer technology for them to try to get to the small to medium business space.” 

“They were looking for some good MSP partners to really leverage and to utilize that technology,” Kent added. “And so for cloudIT, the opportunity to work a little bit on the ground level with Versa was a very appealing concept, to be able to work closely hand-in-hand with them on developing some of the feature set necessary.”

The cloudIT partnership is another victory for Versa Networks this year. S-Net Communications added the vendor's SASE to its managed services portfolio in April; and Verizon, Comcast Business, and Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise have also deployed the vendor's networking and security platform.

Dell’Oro Group’s Network Security Market report initially named Versa, VMware, and Cato as the only vendors offering a truly “unified SASE” platform, with Aryaka added to that list in July. Unified SASE vendors offer all five core networking and security functions — SD-WAN, secure web gateway (SWG), zero-trust network access (ZTNA), cloud access security broker (CASB), and cloud firewalls — and have managed to integrate them into a single, converged product.

The SASE market has more than 35 vendors and the top 11 represent 80% of the market by revenue. Of these, Versa controlled 84% of the market share for unified SASE. 

Dell’Oro’s five-year forecast shows unified SASE growth to remain stronger than disaggregated solutions, and to rise to nearly $3 billion by 2026, “representing approximately a quarter of the total SASE opportunity.”