SASE and the (sometimes) futility of predictions

At this time of the year, there are plenty of blogs and articles about predictions for the new year. And while it’s fun and worthwhile to think about the future and make predictions, the late baseball player Yogi Berra captured the oftentimes futile exercise best: “It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.”

A recent article by NPR looked back at what hundred years ago, in 1923, people thought would be part of our lives in 2023. In some cases, they were pretty close to getting it right. Like in this case that “Watch-size radio telephones will keep everybody in communication with the ends of the earth,” while in other cases, not so much: “One writer predicted the eradication of cancer, as well as tuberculosis, infantile paralysis (also known as polio), locomotor ataxia and leprosy” or another “No more hard work in 2023.” You can read the complete list of predictions here.

Note – who could have predicted that Penn State would be in the Rose Bowl in 1923, and then exactly 100 years later in 2023? Or that the Rose Bowl and football would still exist.

What’s in store for SASE in 2023?

Given the many predictions around SASE over the last few years, I must talk about what to expect in 2023. This recent interview by SDxCentral with Gartner analyst Andrew Lerner helps clarify the confusion of the many interpretation and vendor pitches. One prediction is clear as we enter (probably) a recession or at least enterprises face economic headwinds: CIOs and IT teams will have to deal with ever-increasing cybersecurity threats while coping with a shortage of skilled employees. So much for the hundred-year-old prediction, “No more hard work in 2023.”

Companies will look at consolidating vendors to streamline vendor management, continuously shift to ‘as a service’ consumption and outsource the hard work of deploying network and security services. In short, enterprises will seek to reduce complexity and increase ease of deployment. While Gartner is not going so far as to declare 2023 “the year of SASE,” this year is poised to lay the groundwork for the next cycle of WAN and security solution refreshes.

Aryaka Unified SASE

One of the core tenets of delivering a simplified and better experience starts with the underlying architecture. If you followed us, you know that Aryaka has built a single-pass architecture that consists of a single management pane, a unified control plane, and a distributed data plane to enforce network and security policies closest to users.

In 2023, you will see us continuing to invest in resources and infrastructure to build out our offering for our managed services solutions.

Stay in touch and connect with us throughout 2023

Newsletters: An easy way to stay connected is to sign up for our monthly newsletter, aptly named Aryaka Connect, via email or LinkedIn.

Webinars: We started a new monthly webinar series called “Get SASE in 15 minutes” that will focus on the various aspects of SASE, how it can help enterprises, what steps to consider for migrating from legacy WAN and security deployments, and more. The first episode focuses on decoding the many definitions of Zero Trust. Watch the on-demand session here.

Events: For a live stream of Aryaka’s presentation at the upcoming Network Field Day, tune in on January 18 at 1.30 PM Pacific Time where we will demo the ease of use of deploying network and security services with our single-pass architecture. For a full overview of upcoming events, visit our events page.

One last prediction: Flexibility and Innovation continue to matter in 2023

Making accurate predictions is tough, yet enterprises certainly can’t afford not to make assumptions and plan for the future to consider the right WAN and security infrastructure for the next few years.

An award-winning, innovative vendor like Aryaka, see: Aryaka Wins Fierce Innovation Award for its Managed SD-WAN and SASE Services, that offers architectural flexibility to adapt to changing business and user needs helps to minimize the risk of making the wrong bet. With much economic uncertainty, times like these both present a challenge and opportunity. An opportunity to defy convention and consider a different experience than what Big Telco Carriers and Big Tech vendors offer.

So, as a suggestion for your new year’s resolution: Put us on your managed SD-WAN and SASE shortlist for 2023.