McAfee announced significant enhancements to its Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) solution delivered by MVISION Unified Cloud Edge (UCE) by launching easy-to-use integrations with third-party Software-Defined Wide Area Networking (SD-WAN) solutions, and extending its UCE platform to enable global strategic partners to deliver managed SASE offerings. In addition, McAfee continues to progress engagement with leading global service providers Atos and BT to offer a range of managed Web, CASB, and SASE offerings to help organizations who are struggling with the challenges of digital transformation.

According to a recent McAfee Cloud Adoption and Risk Report, the work from anywhere trend has led to a 50% increase in enterprise cloud use across all industries. This trend is merely the latest driver pushing many organizations to dramatically accelerate their cloud transformation plans and re-architect their networks to facilitate a "direct-to-cloud" model for remote users and branch offices. By seamlessly integrating MVISION UCE with the direct-to-cloud network functionality of industry leading SD-WAN solutions, organizations benefit from a unified cloud-native offering that facilitates fast, secure, simple, and scalable access to web and cloud resources, in line with the Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) framework.

"McAfee is committed to helping our customers securely move their operations to the cloud and help their employees to work from wherever they are in these times. With these new enhancements to MVISION UCE, McAfee has delivered a SASE solution that will help customers optimize and secure their work-from-home infrastructure," said Ash Kulkarni, executive vice president and chief product officer of the enterprise business group at McAfee.

SD-WAN Partnerships

MVISON UCE delivers robust native support for virtually any SD-WAN solution via site-to-site and site-to-cloud deployments, leveraging industry standard Dynamic IPSec and GRE protocols. To date, McAfee has certified interoperability with six of the industry's leading SD-WAN vendors, including Viptela (Cisco), VeloCloud (VMware), and Citrix, with even deeper partnerships forged with Silver Peak, Fortinet, and Versa Networks through McAfee's Security Innovation Alliance (SIA) program, one of the industry's largest technology partnership programs.

"To realize the full promise of the cloud and digital transformation, enterprises will need to transform both their WAN and security architectures, and with the McAfee partnership, customers can achieve both with a tightly integrated solution," said Fraser Street, vice president, technical alliances at Silver Peak.

"Certified interoperability as part of the SIA connected security ecosystem will expand the options for customer implementations of Versa Secure SD-WAN and Versa SASE," said Michael Wood, chief marketing officer at Versa Networks.

Managed Service Provider Offerings

Adoption of the SASE framework involves the consolidation of many traditionally siloed network and security technologies, requiring major architectural considerations and collaboration across many parts of the IT organization. Recognizing the importance of the partner relationship, McAfee has extended its UCE platform to enable partners. Notably, Atos and BT have agreed to use their global scale to deliver managed Web, CASB and SASE offerings to organizations that want to adopt the Cloud without the challenges associated with having to plan and manage everything on their own.

"This partnership is key to how we provide our clients the best cloud security services, not just for the surge in work-from-home but for any challenges that lie ahead," said Chris Moret, Senior Vice President, Head of Cybersecurity Services at Atos. "Market-leading technologies like CASB or Web Gateway, which make up McAfee's MVISION UCE, along with the processes and skills of our cybersecurity professionals across the globe enable Atos customers to modernize at the rate of market change."

"The strategic partnership between BT and McAfee is a mutual choice made after intense scrutiny of the market," said Chris Marwood, head of managed security services portfolio at BT. "We believe McAfee's cloud platform strategy is where the industry is heading, and that our managed service offerings including CASB will enable our joint customers to accelerate their journey to the cloud. We look forward to our continued partnership with much more on our roadmap this year and into 2021."