At Cisco Live in Las Vegas, we shared some exciting news and announcements about what Cisco is doing to lay the groundwork to be the connectivity and security provider for the world. The need to deliver unified experiences that are simple, secure, and predictable to solve operational complexity and simplify IT emerged as a strong theme. I touched on this in my last blog about the importance of leveraging unified secure access service edge (SASE) to help deliver those unified experiences. The need for simplicity through unified SASE has never been greater. At least 41% of IT leaders say their biggest obstacle is securing user access to cloud-based applications and mobile devices or cloud-based solutions, according to our latest Global Networking Trends Report.¹

Answering that call, I am happy to share that we are making significant strides forward in advancing Cisco+ Secure Connect, our unified SASE solution to help our customers streamline and simplify operations. Our platform approach to SASE seamlessly converges the networking and security domains into one, which makes securing user access, anywhere, easy.

Extending the Simplified, Unified SASE Experience

We recognize that IT has a critical need for consistency and end-to-end understanding of what access policies are in place across the network. That is why Cisco+ Secure Connect is taking another step forward in evolving unified SASE with the inclusion of unified policy sync and unified intent-based access to further simplify the IT experience.

Unified policy sync seamlessly brings together enterprise edge and cloud edge policies in one powerful platform, managed by one dashboard. This provides IT teams with a single interface to configure and control policies in one place across premises to cloud, delivering a more streamlined experience, improving security posture, and increasing operational efficiencies.

The magic of unified policy involves the convergence of policy constructs across multiple places, using centralized management for distributed enforcement. IT admins can now set a policy based on intent, and it will be enforced across the cloud edge and the enterprise edge without having to manage multiple policies for different environments. Alternative solutions might claim to send all traffic to the cloud edge where policies are enforced, but with Cisco+ Secure Connect there is no need to send it all since it can be enforced at the most optimal location, as close as it can be to the user or the app, leading to better resource utilization, and ultimately, a better end-user experience.

Great Opportunities Ahead for SASE

Cisco's SASE vision combines our market-leading networking, client connectivity, security, and visibility capabilities into a single subscription service, Cisco+ Secure Connect. This Cisco SASE platform enables secure access to any application, over any network, anywhere users work. Much like the engine that powers a car, security service edge (SSE) is the cloud security engine that powers Cisco unified SASE. As we continue to improve the security engine, the car will improve its performance, and our customers will seamlessly benefit from the added value. During Cisco Live, Cisco announced its new SSE solution, Cisco Secure Access, which converges cloud-native security in one platform.

In the coming year, Cisco+ Secure Connect will gain new security capabilities through enhancements to Cisco Secure Access. Evolving this core building block of our SASE architecture will power Cisco+ Secure Connect to deliver outcomes our customers need, including greater resiliency, efficiency, improved security posture, and seamless experiences from anywhere.

The Important Role of Managed Service Providers

Through key partners like Lumen Technologies and Spectrum Enterprise, a part of Charter Communications, Inc., more customers can benefit from simplified experiences through a unified offering as they embark on their SASE journey. Both partners recently announced the addition of Cisco unified SASE to their security portfolio, helping reach more customers wherever they are on the path to simpler, secure connectivity.

Cisco+ Secure Connect empowers managed service providers to accelerate time to service and deliver faster value to their customers by removing the typical technical and commercial complexities of integrating multiple discrete products to deliver a service. This simple yet powerful turnkey SASE solution unifies the IT experience and elevates the end-user experience by tightly integrating SD-WAN, remote worker connectivity, next-generation firewalls, secure web gateways, and zero trust network access. This delivers a consistent operational model and a single interface that dramatically increases operational efficiency for managed service providers and customers alike.

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1 Global Networking Trends Report, Cisco