Page 12 - EngineerIT February 2022 UPDATED

ICT – REMOTE WORKING

Hello SASE. Goodbye SD-WAN?

T he working environment has been irrevocably changed over the past two years, and

the debate rages on as to whether we’ll ever go back to a pre-COVID setup.
Certain organisations like PwC have made decisive moves, with the accounting and
consulting firm announcing earlier this year that all of its 40,000 US client services employees
would be able to work virtually, from anywhere, permanently. Other major accounting firms,
including Deloitte and KPMG, have followed suit, providing staff with the option to continue
to work remotely into the future.
In South Africa, it seems – at least for now – that many businesses are considering
a hybrid approach to working, giving employees a degree of flexibility, with certain days
designated as in-office ‘face time’ days and others as work-from-home days.
Farmers too have had to modify their day-to-day operations, where possible changing the Hardus Dippenaar, senior network architect
way in which they interact with suppliers, clients and staff, explained Hardus Dippenaar, senior at Datacentrix.
network architect at Datacentrix, a hybrid IT systems integrator and managed services provider.
Speaking at Datacentrix’ Agri Indaba event, Dippenaar added that regardless of what matter where it comes from.
a company’s decision is in the shorter term around a hybrid approach to work, several An important point here is that it’s
considerations must be taken into account. not just about the deployment of security
“One is that an organisation’s data is moving as people are moving. Another is that staff across the modern enterprise, it’s also
expect the same, seamless connection to the applications they need, regardless of where about the simplified monitoring, managing
they might be working from. and reporting that this also brings.
“Not only this, but security as we know it is no longer pertinent just in the workplace, it
also needs to move with your users,” he stated. “This is where the concept of Secure Access New connectivity needs?
Service Edge (SASE) is coming to the fore, as the requirements of a distributed workforce By the same token that an existing SD-
have placed remote access to applications and the ability to work from anywhere as top WAN implementation does not need to
organisational priorities today. The datacentre is no longer a company’s hub, it’s now the user. be replaced when rolling out SASE, an
At the same time though, the traditional office has not disappeared, and worker distribution organisation’s connectivity infrastructure
could shift again at any point. should also not necessarily be changed. “A
It makes sense then to deliver the necessary agility by running your network as a service company can use its existing connectivity,
through a SASE-enabled architecture, which defines the edge of the network as constantly whether it be an asymmetrical link, fibre,
changing and moving with the user, extending IT’s visibility beyond the corporate network LTE (Long-Term Evolution), MPLS (Multi-
and into the cloud.” Protocol Label Switching) or anything else.
Don’t throw away good infrastructure
But what about SD-WAN? unless it’s expensive, or slow; use what’s
The good news for those businesses that are or have already invested in software-defined available and optimise it.
networking (SD-WAN) technology, is that there is no rip-and-replace required. Businesses From a local agricultural perspective,
deploying SD-WAN create an overlay network through physical appliances, software or cloud- Dippenaar clarified that the future of
based vendor services, depending on their IT needs, but SASE is more distributed and, by business within the sector will see a
Gartner’s definition, strictly cloud-based. large-scale interest in and adoption of IoT
The critical difference for today’s environment, however, is the fact that SD-WAN still (Internet of Things) devices and related
follows the more traditional networking concept of all network infrastructure centring around data collection. Digitalisation is a major
an organisation’s datacentre, whereas SASE considers the datacentre as just another service driver for the future of agri. Through
edge – essentially the SE in SASE. Essentially, SD-WAN provides the foundation for a SASE- SASE, organisations within this industry
enabled architecture, delivering protected, anywhere, anytime access. will be able to empower their workforce
with greater mobility, while also ensuring
How secure is SASE? that only those people with the correct
With cybercriminals already raking in billions of Rands, a valid concern voiced by many firms credentials and rights can access data and
is whether SASE is further complicating cybersecurity challenges. This is not the case, said deliver it to the cloud. This information
Dippenaar, due to the multilayer security capabilities provided by SD-WAN technology for can then be analysed and used for more
both on-premises and cloud. sustainable farming,” he said. n
“These security measures can bridge a company’s current security deployment with a
SASE rollout by providing consistent security policy enforcement that can be rolled out and Download the Datacentrix Agri Indaba
managed anywhere. The edge is secured because the network is treated as a Zero Trust 2021 presentations: https://www.
network. The trust of any device and any user must be proven with every access request, no datacentrix.co.za/agri_indaba_2021.html

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