Windstream claims North America’s ‘first and only comprehensive’ managed SASE

Managed communications service provider Windstream Enterprise (WE) has announced what it has called North America’s first comprehensive managed secure access service edge (SASE) offering, delivered in conjunction with Cato Networks.

The firm said there has been a surge in market and customer demand for cloud-optimised networking and security services, thus necessitating a swift response to create a turnkey SASE package. Moreover, the firm added that investments in cutting-edge technology and what it called “industry-first” service guarantees, driven by intuitive market and customer insights, have driven a product development programme leading it to deliver on a future it envisioned years ago.

Outlining the potential opportunity, WE quoted Gartner research, predicting that by 2025, at least 60% of enterprises will have explicit strategies and timelines for SASE adoption, up from 10% in 2020. This rapid acceptance, said WE, demonstrated the need for “anytime, anywhere” offerings that can deliver secure access at scale – both on-site and remotely.

“Security remains the highest priority for enterprises as they move toward cloud-based infrastructures and hybrid work environments, making the availability of Windstream Enterprise’s SASE solution perfectly timed,” said Tony Thomas, president and CEO of Windstream. “As a result of this launch, our clients now have an all-encompassing SASE solution with industry-leading technology from Cato Networks and unrivalled service and support from Windstream Enterprise.”

Cato added that the combination of WE’s service portfolio and delivery capabilities with its SASE platform would accelerate joint customers’ digital transformation journey.

WE sees its integrated SASE service as being able to allow businesses to adapt to constantly shifting users, applications and work environments while keeping all application and security policies synchronised with these changing endpoints from a single pane of glass.

The unified cloud-native SASE framework is available for enterprises to implement immediately and includes a software-defined wide area network, providing the network foundation for SASE by enabling optimised application performance, network routing, global connectivity, wireless area network and internet security, cloud acceleration, and remote access.

Firewall-as-a-service capability enables scalable traffic inspection across all ports and protocols using application-aware firewalling, anti-malware, and intrusion detection and prevention capabilities – whenever and wherever an enterprise needs it.

Secure Web Gateways prevent unsecured traffic from entering an organisation’s internal network by safeguarding users from being infected by malicious web traffic, websites, viruses and ransomware.

Cloud Access Security Broker offers visibility into users’ access of cloud-based resources to ensure compliance with data privacy regulations and corporate security policies, while Zero Trust Network Access, software-defined perimeters, supports remote access to business applications both on-premise and in the cloud, complies with regulations, and enforces organisations’ security policies for every user, device, location and network.