Remember when the term “edge security” was cutting-edge? By today’s standards, yesterday’s edge protection was simple. Protecting today’s ever-changing, sprawling attack surface is anything but. To make the concept tangible to your clients, just walk them through a discussion of edge protection.
Why The Edge is Edgy
Today, addressing security at the edge puts many IT and security pros on edge. It’s not hard to see why. What constitutes “the edge’ is fluid. Securing the edge today is a matter of protecting multiple moving and morphing edges. Today’s businesses have:
- Many users in many (often mobile) places
- New and unknown devices (including IoT)
- Public, private and hybrid cloud workloads
All those evolving components create opportunities for bad guys and challenges for your clients.
Security-Driven Networking Creates a Larger, More Manageable Edge
Morphing edges present more than security challenges. Performance is essential to productivity and business success in today’s decentralized workspaces. This means that connectivity also matters.
When problems become large, sometimes you have to think bigger. Fortinet’s solution to the challenges of modern business models is to deploy a unified network and security footprint that contains all of the shifting edge pieces.
Components of this edge security solution include:
- Network firewall
- Software-defined wide area networking (SD-WAN)
- SD-Branch
- Secure Access Service Edge (SASE)
Benefits of this approach toward edge management include:
- Scalable flexibility and security for all users
- The ability to grow without evolving edge exposure
- Freedom from the frustrations of point product dependencies and limitations
- Simplified and centralized management
- Manual task automation
- Superior speed and performance
Single-Provider Simplification
Using a single provider for all components simplifies deployment, eliminates interoperability concerns and is essential to creating a solution that scales on-demand with business needs. More importantly, a unified threat detection and response solution across the entire security fabric delivers a superior security posture to mix-and-match or piecemeal solutions.
It also simplifies your life as an MSSP. It’s easier to sell a single-provider solution and gain a single point of contact for all client issues, allowing you to build the consistent sales and support process needed to grow your company.