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o What challenges do we need to know about cybersecurity and SD-WAN right now?
In our customer research findings with IDC, we found that many organizations are concluding that their DIY model or the vendor they chose to help deploy their SD-WAN solution is either too complicated and/or not meeting their expectations thus opening their network to potential threats and attacks.
In addition, the continued lack of cybersecurity personnel to help keep networks and applications secure continues to be a large gap. Organizations are struggling to not only find, but retain quality networking and security professionals. According to Forbes, 62% of Enterprises feel they lack bench strength in cybersecurity. Manage Security Providers help customers overcome these challenges
Adding to the challenges are the ever-increasing compliance requirements. Standards and requirements are constantly changing, and most organizations struggle to keep up. Multi-national companies are especially challenged with regulations changing depending on where they are.

o What can we expect to see from SD-WAN’s evolution in terms of improvements in network resilience, reductions in packet loss and automation/AI in 2024? Beyond 2024?
We expect to see AI and ML strengthening SD-WAN solutions and security offerings through automation to help with network resilience, vendor complexity, lack of resources and training gaps in 2024 and beyond. As AI and ML improve so will prescriptive modeling to further anticipate the protection and security needs of organizations.
Expect to find more features that help networks self heal and require less human interaction which will lead to greater up time a better user experience while saving enterprises money.
These improvements do not mean Enterprises can be hands off. On the contrary, Gartner also added Managed SASE to the Hype Cycle for Enterprise Network in 2023 as organizations realize they need a partner to manage and protect their infrastructure.

o What can we expect from SASE in 2024 that we have not seen from SASE solutions in 2023? Will we see new features, new elements of resistance from malware threats, or is SASE slowing down?

•  In 2024. more choice will be given to the customer on what solution is best for them.
• Solutions will now include Single Vendor SASE with security features such as Zero Trust Network Access and a best-in-breed solution that addresses complex requirements and is co-managed with a Managed Service Provider like GTT.
• GTT is providing this choice to customers in 2024 by extending our partnership with Fortinet.
• Garter predicts that total end user SASE spending will grow to $21B by 2026 and the Single VendorSASE total market opportunity will see a healthy CAGR of 36% through 2026.
• In addition, Gartner predicts that through 2026 more than half of cyber attacks will be targeted at companies that do not have a ZTNA framework in place.
• Providing customers with the choice of what SASE solution works best for them will allow for greater adoption and growth within the market.

o Is automation becoming a key component in ensuring zero-trust security applications work smoothly?
Yes, automation is a key component of zero trust security as more organizations are implementing AI and ML into their products.
However, automation is just one key component. There are additional key components such as assigning roles within a zero-trust network that can also help applications work smoothly.
For example: An IT team can define policies on which user can connect to what specific application and with what specific device. For example, a sales professional does not necessarily need access to the HR application, or a finance professional can only use the SaaS application from their laptop when in the office but not from a local coffeeshop.

o Can we expect to see more all-in-one MSASE packages that include items like firewall-as-a-service, SD-WAN services and zero trust architecture services?
Gartner has dubbed 2023, the year of ZTNA and has listed the following benefits of a ZTNA framework:
The Zero Trust model provides contextual, risk-based, and least privileged access to applications, not networks in case of legacy VPN replacement.
The invisibility of your services on the public internet and shield from cyber-attacks when replacing DMZs applications.
Better user experience, agility, adaptability, and ease of policy management.
Scalability and ease of adoption in the case of cloud based ZTNA solutions.
Smooth digital business transformation scenarios that do not fit with legacy access approaches.
We would expect to see more choices in packages provided to customers that include SSE services such as FWaaS, ZTNA and CASB and CSWG for both Single Vendor SASE and best in breed MSASE.
The ability to showcase to the customer that we have them covered no matter where they are within their security journey is going to drive marketplace adoption not all-in-one packages.

o What does the decade hold in terms of SD-WAN and SASE service adoption?
According to our IDC research, 50% of organizations have already implemented SD-WAN which leaves an additional 50% who are either thinking about implementing SD-WAN in the next 1-3 years, implementing it themselves in a DYI environment, or not implementing at all.
Garter also predicts that total end user SASE spending will grow to $21B by 2026 and the Single Source SASE total market opportunity will see a healthy CAGR of 36% through 2026.
For those who are looking at a DIY model, network providers such as GTT are there to ensure their network is running properly and when/if they decide to move to a more advanced SD-WAN model, the services will be there to adopt.
We have always believed that SD-WAN is the first step for security services adoption. Once organizations see the value to their business that SD-Wan provides, they are more open to adopting more services such as SASE, Managed Firewall and DDoS.
In addition, simplifying the technology stack for organizations making investments in SD-WAN has also led to adoption of FWaaS, Secure Gateways and other security service (SASE)
As mentioned above, providing customers with the choice for SASE will allow for greater adoption and growth within the market.

o Will we see a reduction in conflicting policies that help govern application operations in zero-trust architectures due to all-in-one service offerings? Is that kind of service package from tech firms growing in popularity?
We believe we will see more conflicting policies developed to help govern application operations before we see a reduction or standardization.
Service packages will continue to grow in popularity, and we will see an increase in demand. We see this demand and popularity driven not only by increases in regulations and compliance but also by more sophisticated cyber attacks and lack of resources.