What’s Next is a biweekly conversation between SDxCentral CEO Matt Palmer and a senior-level executive from the technology industry. In each video, Matt has an informal but in-depth video chat with a fellow thought leader to uncover what the future holds for the enterprise IT and telecom markets — the hook is each guest is a long-term acquaintance of Matt’s, so expect a lively conversation.

This week, Palmer spoke with Shlomo Kramer, founder and CEO of Cato Networks. Kramer is a network security expert and a serial entrepreneur. He co-founded Check Point Software, who created the first commercial Firewall, and Imperva, the innovator of the Web application firewall (WAF). Kramer also made early investments in highly successful enterprise software companies including Palo Alto Networks, Trusteer, Gong and numerous others.

Editor’s note: The following is a summary of what Shlomo shared in their conversation, edited for length. To hear the full conversation, be sure to watch the video.

Digitally transforming network security

Kramer: 15 years ago, every organization in the world decided they wanted to be like Amazon Web Services (AWS) and go through a digital transformation. And in the last 10 years, that's slowly been progressing. The main challenge that’s still not digitally transformed itself, that’s holding back the business, is a particular tool in it: security. The only way for digital transformation to succeed is to digitally transform security. That's a huge problem that we’re starting to see. The tip of the iceberg is awareness of the problem.

You can see that in my background. Secure access service edge (SASE) is essentially something we invented in 2015, and then Gartner coined the term in 2019. The idea was to digitally transform networking and network security. Literally, the core idea was to be the AWS for networking and network security.

The consumption problem is growing exponentially. You go to the exhibit halls now and it's like a thousand booths, each with its own widget. And imagine yourself as a 20,000 employee manufacturer — you know, not a small company, one billion dollars in revenue, whatever. Looking at these 1,000 widgets and saying, ‘How the hell am I going to build a security solution with that’? That has to be solved. It’s a huge problem.

Platforming

Kramer: Integration and a single console does not make a platform. A platform really is a word that needs to be treated very seriously and deliver huge value. Really, it's converged capabilities in the data plane and everything has a single context, the same object, it's the same product. But in order to do that, you need to build it from scratch. You can't take two separate products and unscramble the eggs and make them into a single platform. So we find today a lot of people talking about platforms but actually, what they have is a bunch of products, a bunch of point solutions.

Firewalls

Palmer: Obviously SASE is getting more and more mainstream. But where do you see us in that transformation into into sort of this third generation of firewalls?

Kramer: Very much in the beginning. We are just starting. I think this is a process that's going to take 10 years, quite a few years. But eventually, at the end of that process, you would see the install base of appliances largely replaced by a cloud network-based firewall. And and that's not only branches, but also encompasses data center. And obviously, there's going to always be firewalls inside your network. But networks are becoming much flatter, and there's less insight.

Watch the full video for the rest of the conversation between these old friends and colleagues, who also happen to be tech visionaries.