Occasionally, a VPN is beneficial for things like gaming and shopping, among other activities. But its newer counterpart, SASE, may benefit you just as well. Let’s have a look at SASE vs VPN as alternatives or replacements. We’ll also detail how their usage differs and make other valid comparisons. Let’s jump in.
What are the advantages of SASE compared to VPN?
As SASE gains popularity, more organizations prefer it to regular VPNs due to the benefits it provides. Although this is only a tiny portion of SASE’s entire capabilities, it is an excellent starting point for determining whether it is the perfect fit for your company. SASE has several advantages over VPN. The benefits of using a VPN are detailed in the list below.
SASE Combines Many Tools into One
With the advent of remote work over the last year and a half, edge and cloud computing have taken on significant roles in business IT. Virtual private networks (VPNs) have practically become the norm in corporations, allowing distant employees to access protected data. However, latency has necessitated that businesses update their distribution techniques. SASE and edge computing bring resources closer to employees. Within the platform, SASE includes:
Cloud access security brokers (CASBs)
SD-WAN, Zero Trust Network Access, and Firewall-as-a-Service (FWaaS)
Secure Web Gateway (SWG)
More Benefits of SASE Versus VPN
Here is what we infer.
Zero-Trust Possibilities for Remote Employees
Home Wi-Fi networks are frequently not as secure as business networks. Because of this, plus the fact that employees are logging in from various places, zero trust is required for remote work to be successful. I9T additionally defends against internal risks by limiting staff access to only the data required to accomplish their tasks. This data separation helps to avoid data abuse and allows IT to swiftly isolate a breach if one occurs. Typically, VPNs do not provide the same level of access control.
Lower Latency Compared to Typical VPNs
Traditional VPNs allow employees to acquire access by impersonating the IP address of the central data server’s location. This causes a delay since the request must go all the way to the data center for approval before being returned to the user. Instead, SASE sends data to the network’s edge, allowing employees to access it more quickly. Net latency can frustrate employees and lead to significant delays over time.
SASE Saves Money
While it may appear to be pricey at first glance, SASE helps firms save money on both capital and operating expenditures. SASE is often less expensive than acquiring many separate apps since it combines them. Furthermore, IT personnel simply have one application to learn and administer, lowering operational expenses. Traditional VPNs require you to acquire numerous extra products to achieve the same level of capability.
Secure Your Data
Sensitive data such as business emails, financial information, and location tracking is routinely exchanged online. This information is easily trackable and exploitable, especially on a public network where anyone with network access has the ability to access your personal data. A VPN connection scrambles your data into code, making it unintelligible to anybody without an encryption key. It conceals your browsing history so that no one else may see it.
Key Benefits of SASE: Work at Home
Today, remote work is more common than ever before. Remote workers can use a VPN to access business resources via a private connection from anywhere, as long as they have access to the internet. This gives employees more flexibility while simultaneously protecting and securing corporate data, even while using a public Wi-Fi network.
Access and Watch Regional Content from Anywhere
Some websites and services restrict media content depending on geographic location, so you may be unable to access some types of content. A VPN disguises, or spoofs, the location of your local server, making it appear to be located somewhere else, such as another nation.
Bypass Censorship and Monitoring
Government limitations, censorship, or monitoring may prevent some areas from accessing specific sites or services. With location spoofing enabled, users can easily get around the firewalls, have access to the websites that are banned, and also surf the internet without restrictions.
Prevent ISP and Third-Party Tracking: Cloud-Based Remote Access VPN
Your internet service provider (ISP) keeps a record of and monitors your web surfing activity by means of your device’s distinctive IP address. It is possible that this information will be sold to third-party advertisers, given to the authority, or will become public in case of a security breach. A VPN conceals your IP address, prevents ISP tracking, and secures your data by transmitting it to a remote VPN server instead of your ISP’s servers.
What are the SASE disadvantages in comparison with VPN?
SASE could complicate the network setting. From time to time, companies have recently implemented SD-WAN or edge devices. Incorporating SASE may lead to duplications and inefficiencies, thus complicating the process of identifying the source of the problem. However, Internet-based VPNs can enable organizations to tap into existing network lines and network capability, thereby improving reach and service quality for remote and foreign sites.
Will SASE Make VPNs Obsolete in the Future?
The VPN’s primary use case is to allow users with remote access, which proved useful during the COVID-19 epidemic. Now that remote and hybrid work has become the norm in office settings, businesses are seeking new solutions to provide remote access. Alternatives can give network teams a more comprehensive security plan, even though VPNs are unlikely to go away. Technologies such as ZTNA, SD-WAN, SDP, IAM, PAM, and others may help create a zero-trust security approach, which may subsequently be utilized as a security element in a SASE architecture.
The Verdicts
The goal of both SASE and VPNs is to provide safe access to network resources. Significant security features in SASE’s existing architecture, however, could beat VPNs’ one-connection function. The notion that SASE will make VPNs obsolete has started to gain traction. This is partially because SASE may provide context-aware, secure access directly in the cloud, potentially reducing the need for conventional VPNs.
Can SASE Completely Replace a VPN?
Yep! SASE has the potential to take the place of VPN since it offers direct cloud connections and enhanced network security services that make access easier for both individual and mobile users. SASE, unlike typical VPNs that are tethered to office networks, provides a comprehensive security solution that is appropriate for cloud-based organizations.
More on ZTNA
SASE and zero-trust network access (ZTNA) technologies are predicted to increasingly replace VPNs because they provide a cloud architecture that enables flexible, secure cloud connections for mobile users and cloud computing environments. These developing technologies improve network security while simplifying access control for distributed users and cloud assets.
Is SASE More Expensive Than a VPN?
VPNs provide small organizations a cost-effective way to obtain secure access without the hassles associated with more complex solutions. VPNs’ simplified design enables these smaller organizations to minimize costs while preserving secure network access. Cost-effectiveness emerges as a key consideration in small business decision-making when evaluating SASE and VPN solutions from a financial standpoint.
Conclusion
So, to summarize, we can say that though VPN is still widely used, SASE may present as a better alternative. Yet, it entirely hinges on your goal/objective. SASE and VPN can achieve a lot, but the main factors will always be cost, time, and user-friendliness in deciding which to go for. For companies that are budget-conscious, virtual private networks (VPNs) attract them especially attractive because they come with low costs as well as easy setups. But then SASE can reduce maintenance costs and hardware dependency, thus being the cheaper option overall in the long run.
FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions)
1. Will SASE completely eliminate VPN in all businesses?
SASE could definitely substitute VPN in the majority of today’s companies, especially if they have their staff working remotely or in a hybrid manner. Scalability, security, and performance are the main areas where SASE outshines VPNs. However, small companies or those with basic networking requirements might still choose VPNs for their simplicity and cost-effectiveness.
2. Is a VPN still necessary for personal use?
Absolutely. VPNs are very advantageous for individual users who prefer maintaining their online activities secret, watching videos limited to certain countries, or using public Wi-Fi without worrying about security issues. On the other hand, SASE is mostly aimed at enterprise-grade applications rather than sporadic consumer needs.
3. What gives SASE the upper hand over VPN in terms of security?
The SASE architecture incorporates a wide range of security tools, including Zero Trust Network Access, firewalls, and secure web gateways, along with its architecture. SASE provides dynamic, context-aware access policies, whereas VPNs simply create a private tunnel but do not examine or control the traffic as much.
4. Does SASE enhance the speed of the internet as compared to VPN?
In most cases, it does. SASE utilizes direct-to-cloud architecture along with SD-WAN, which ultimately makes it less reliant on the traditional way of routing data through centralized servers. In contrast, using VPNs may degrade the performance because it introduces latency in the process, thus slowing down tunnelling points.
5. What factors contribute to SASE being more scalable than VPN?
SASE is naturally cloud-born and therefore its scaling can be done effortlessly in accordance with the growth of your organization. There is no need to purchase more hardware or be concerned about the geographic expansion. On the contrary, VPNs will demand physical expansion with more infrastructure and manual configuration as the number of users increases.
6. Are there any downsides to using SASE for corporate VPN over consumer VPN?
Yes, there can be some downsides. Moving to SASE could be difficult and costly for companies with outdated systems or those that have recently implemented SD-WAN. Moreover, proper SASE configuration requires a highly skilled IT staff, especially in the initial phases.
7. How do costs compare between SASE and VPN?
VPNs are usually cheaper upfront, which is attractive to small businesses. But SASE can reduce long-term costs by combining multiple services into a single solution and lowering operational overhead. The total cost of ownership is often lower over time with SASE.
8. How can a VPN be made more secure?
You focus on strong encryption, secure protocols, and a zero-logs policy.
Also Read: Proxy Servers vs. VPNs: Which Is Better for Privacy?
