Cato says simple SD-WAN doesn't cut it anymore for enterprise customers, who need SD-WAN combined with security, mobile and cloud connectivity, delivered over the cloud. It's all about a new industry buzzword: Secure Access Service Edge (SASE).

Mitch Wagner, Executive Editor, Light Reading

January 24, 2020

2 Min Read
Podcast: Don't Call Us an SD-WAN Provider – Cato Networks

Cato Networks would rather you didn't call them an SD-WAN provider anymore. Instead, Cato is delivering a new kind of service -- Secure Access Service Edge -- or SASE (pronounced "sassy").

SASE is a catchphrase coined by analysts at Gartner over the summer, and it comprises SD-WAN, security and mobile and cloud connectivity, delivered over the cloud.

Dave Greenfield, secure network evangelist for Cato Networks, joins us to discuss what the transition means, why SD-WAN alone is no longer a fit for the industry, and whether gelato is better than Ben & Jerry's.

Learn more about how SD-WAN is transforming service providers at Light Reading's SD-WAN content channel.

"SD-WAN addressed some of the issues we had, but didn't address all of them," says Greenfield. "Gartner recognized this and created this category, the Secure Access Service Edge, a converged networking and security service delivered from the cloud, anywhere in the world."

Cato, which was a finalist for a Light Reading Leading Lights award in 2016, has been doing SASE for years, says Greenfield, but now the industry -- and buzzwords -- have caught up. "SD-WAN is just a small part of what we do," says Greenfield.

Greenfield and I also talk about underlying reasons for the transition, SD-WAN's effect on the confidence that service providers' enterprise customers have in their networks, and whether gelato is just fancy ice cream.

Want to hear more? The Light Reading podcast is available on:

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About the Author(s)

Mitch Wagner

Executive Editor, Light Reading

San Diego-based Mitch Wagner is many things. As well as being "our guy" on the West Coast (of the US, not Scotland, or anywhere else with indifferent meteorological conditions), he's a husband (to his wife), dissatisfied Democrat, American (so he could be President some day), nonobservant Jew, and science fiction fan. Not necessarily in that order.

He's also one half of a special duo, along with Minnie, who is the co-habitor of the West Coast Bureau and Light Reading's primary chewer of sticks, though she is not the only one on the team who regularly munches on bark.

Wagner, whose previous positions include Editor-in-Chief at Internet Evolution and Executive Editor at InformationWeek, will be responsible for tracking and reporting on developments in Silicon Valley and other US West Coast hotspots of communications technology innovation.

Beats: Software-defined networking (SDN), network functions virtualization (NFV), IP networking, and colored foods (such as 'green rice').

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