Versa Networks, a leader in SASE, announced that Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) has identified Versa SASE as having the most SASE supported functions, according to its "Availability and Buying Options in the Emerging SASE Market" report published last month.

The EMA report compared SASE products of nine leading vendors, broken out into "Must Have," "Nice to Have," and "And Then Some" SASE function categories. The report also evaluated the vendors on characteristics such as security functionality, SASE architectures, buying options, support models, and SASE go-to-market strategies.

According to Paula Musich, Research Director and author of the EMA report: "Versa believes its SASE offering is unique in that it offers the same set of security, networking business, and analytic policies no matter where they are deployed, which includes in the cloud, on-premises, or a combination of both, depending on requirements at different customer locations. Rivals may only offer a subset of SASE services in the cloud or may not offer SASE services on-premises...Versa gives its customers the option of running its services from the cloud, in on-premises gateways, or both, using a single operating system and software stack. Its cloud service has 90 points of presence around the globe and the company continues to expand that footprint."

Versa delivers tightly integrated SASE via the cloud, on-premises, or as a blended combination of both via VOS (Versa Operating System) built on a Single-Pass Parallel Processing architecture. Versa began delivering SASE services such as VPN, Secure SD-WAN, Edge Compute Protection, NGFW, Next Generation-Firewall as a Service, SWG, and Zero Trust Network Access nearly 5 years ago. Versa uniquely provides contextual security based on user, role, device, application, location, security posture of the device, and content. As the leader in SASE, Versa is the only solution proven to deliver the industry's leading and differentiated architecture for high performance and security.

Get a complimentary copy of EMA's "Availability and Buying Options in the Emerging SASE Market" report.

Versa SASE was identified in EMA's report as having all SASE functions considered important to organizations. Functions in the "Must Have" category include SD-WAN, SWG, CASB, ZTNA, FWaaS, ID Sensitive Data/Malware, Line Rate/Edge, and Line/Rate Cloud. Functions listed in the "Nice to Have" category are WAAP, RBI, Recursive DNS, Network Sandbox, API Access to SaaS, and Managed/Unmanaged Device Support. Finally, functions making up the "And Then Some" category include Wi-Fi Hotspot Protection, Network Obfuscation, Legacy VPN, Edge Compute Protection, and EUBA.

According to Musich: "When it comes to security functionality, EMA believes that the same set of security services that protect employees directly connected to the enterprise network needs to be applied to roaming users, branch office users, and the cloud services they seek to access. A true SASE offering at minimum must include SD-WAN, SWG, CASB, ZTNA, FWaaS, the ability to identify sensitive data (including encrypted data) and malware, and consistency in line-rate operations at the network's edge and from the cloud."

Unlike competing solutions, Versa SASE was built from the ground up to deliver a tightly integrated SASE solution within a single software stack, eliminating service chaining, cascading, and virtual interconnect between services, which is required by competitors. Competing solutions have hidden costs and gaps in security because they require multiple product and service components. Achieving visibility and control from solutions requiring service chaining to connect multiple components together proves ineffective, increasing the costs and attack surfaces for organizations. Versa ACE Partners are uniquely able to offer a cost-effective and simple-to-quote solution rather than stitching together multiple vendors to achieve a single SASE solution.

"The industry continues to validate Versa SASE as a superior architecture with the leading set of SASE functionalities available in the market today, as evidenced by rapid customer acquisition, analyst reports such as this one by EMA, and a growing collection of industry awards," said Michael Wood, Chief Marketing Officer for Versa Networks. "Versa SASE continues to be the only SASE solution combining a fully integrated robust set of SASE services within one operating system software stack using a single-pass parallel processing architecture and delivered via the cloud, on-premises, or as a blended combination of both."