Your employees work from everywhere now–coffee shops, home offices, airport lounges, client sites. They need access to company applications no matter where they are, but your security wasn't built for this reality.

Enter two technologies that are changing how companies think about network security: Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) and Secure Access Service Edge (SASE). You've probably heard these acronyms thrown around, but what do they actually do?

What Is SASE?

SASE is a network architecture that combines networking and security functions in a single cloud-based platform for complete enterprise protection.

Secure Access Service Edge consolidates traditionally separate point solutions across your infrastructure. Instead of juggling multiple vendors and systems, you can manage everything from connectivity to threat protection through one streamlined control point.

This convergence brings together five essential technologies that have traditionally operated independently:

• **SD-WAN:** Creates intelligent, software-defined connections that optimize traffic routing and enhance application performance across distributed locations.
• **CASB:** Monitors and controls user interactions with cloud applications, ensuring data protection policies remain consistent across all SaaS platforms.
• **SWG:** Filters and inspects web traffic in real time, blocking malicious content while maintaining complete visibility into user browsing activities.
• ZTNA: Eliminates trusted network concepts by requiring continuous verification of every user and device attempting to access resources.
• NGFW: Provides advanced threat protection through deep packet inspection and application-layer security that evolves with emerging attack vectors.

By delivering secure access that follows users and data everywhere they go, SASE gives you unprecedented agility in deploying new locations, scaling resources based on demand, and maintaining consistent security policies. Central policy control eliminates the cost and complexity of managing multiple disparate systems while ensuring optimal security and performance, whether your users connect from corporate offices, remote locations, or public networks.

How SASE Delivers Secure Access

SASE processes security and networking decisions at the network edge before traffic reaches your infrastructure.

With SASE, networking and security live within one platform, unifying functions that have traditionally operated as separate systems. This integration includes SD-WAN for optimized traffic routing, ZTNA for secure application access, CASB for SaaS control, and NGFW for threat protection–all working together instead of in isolation.

Whether someone logs in from headquarters, their home office, or a hotel lobby, SASE applies the same security decisions based on their identity, current location, device health, and the sensitivity of what they're trying to access. For example, a sales manager accessing CRM data from the office receives different treatment than if they were trying to download financial reports from an airport, with SASE automatically adjusting security measures to match the actual risk level of each connection attempt.

What Is ZTNA?

ZTNA is a security framework that provides identity-based access to specific applications without broad network permissions.

This approach scrutinizes every connection request, regardless of origin, before allowing interaction with your applications or data. Unlike legacy VPNs that open wide network pathways once someone authenticates, ZTNA creates narrow, application-specific connections.

Users receive access only to the exact resources they need for their job function, nothing more. This precision eliminates the broad network visibility that makes conventional remote access solutions prime targets for lateral movement attacks.