2022 Global Networking Trends Report

To address rising interest and confusion in the marketplace surrounding secure access service edge (SASE), we’ve created this special addendum to the 2022 Global Networking Trends Report: The Rise of Network as a Service (NaaS).

Driven by the sharp rise in remote work and hybrid cloud adoption, SASE (pronounced “sassy”) provides secure and seamless connectivity to any application, over any network, from any location or device.

SASE integrates networking and security functions into a unified, cloud-native solution or service.

In contrast to traditional security solutions, it pushes security policies and enforcement closer to end users and applications that have become increasingly distributed. It expands on zero trust and eliminates the need to constantly backhaul data to a data center, effectively reducing network loads and bottlenecks and providing a superior user experience.

As an alternative to a traditional security stack, it provides secure access from edge to edge, including the data center, remote offices, roaming users, and beyond.

This addendum highlights the latest trends and insights surrounding SASE, with data from multiple market surveys and perspectives gleaned from prominent industry analysts and experts. We hope this information helps you better understand the benefits and implications of SASE as you formulate your networking, security, and cloud strategies.

 – Omri Guelfand, VP, Network Services, Cisco

The two biggest trends IT teams are dealing with today are undeniably the continued transition to a multicloud application strategy and the adoption of hybrid work models. With users and applications more distributed than ever, the complexity of connecting and securing them has increased dramatically.

The distribution of applications across multiple private and public clouds is now amplified by the intense distribution of workers and workspaces resulting from hybrid work. With this hyperdistribution, the challenge of trying to maintain a high-quality, inclusive user experience stands in stark contrast to the once highly controllable on-premises enterprise environment.

The ongoing transition from a data-center-centric application model to an internet-enabled cloud-centric model has forced IT teams to completely rethink their networking strategy. Likewise, security teams are struggling to provide a safe and seamless user experience when both users and applications are located off-premises, where they are more susceptible to accidental exposure or intentional attacks.

This helps explain the high level of interest in a cloud-delivered SASE model, which brings together networking solutions such as SD-WAN with cloud security solutions such as security service edge (SSE) and zero-trust network access (ZTNA).

SASE is intended to connect and protect users and applications wherever they are located or hosted, ultimately providing a better, more consistent, and more secure user experience. It also promises to reduce IT cost and complexity and improve network flexibility and performance and ultimately the application experience.

Marketplace confusion surrounding SASE has spawned a number of questions regarding existing SD-WAN solutions. Does SASE replace SD-WAN? Do they complement one another? Or are they altogether different solutions for different needs?

The answer is simple: SD-WAN is foundational to SASE.

SASE combines the native security capabilities of SD-WAN with cloud-centric security to connect and protect users and applications no matter where they are located or hosted. As an overlay architecture, SASE cannot deliver ubiquitous security without the safeguards SD-WAN provides, including:

• Enabling Network Address Translation (NAT)
• Segmenting the network into multiple subnetworks
• Monitoring and blocking malware and malicious traffic
• Restricting unauthorized users
• Preventing unwanted content or applications
• Firewalling unwanted incoming and VLAN-to-VLAN traffic
• Securing site-to-site/in-tunnel VPN
• Geofencing for location-based access control

Should IT organizations start with SD-WAN or cloud security? Many are taking a phased approach to SASE implementation. Most are in the middle of their SASE journey, with a combination of SD-WAN and cloud security components that have yet to be fully integrated or operationalized.

With SASE representing the integration of network and security capabilities, 34% of organizations are prioritizing solutions and services that provide integrated, cloud-based management of SD-WAN. Securing traffic to cloud-based applications (33%), optimizing applications hosted in multiple public clouds (32%), and improving network transparency and flexibility (28%) have also been cited as top priorities.

To connect remote workers, 43% of organizations are planning to use VPN as a service, 36% are looking to adopt zero-trust network access and multifactor authentication capabilities, 35% are interested in host-based unified clients, and 35% are looking to extend their SD-WAN to mobile and home users.

In addition to integrating SD-WAN and cloud security capabilities, SASE models can help break down operational silos and foster greater alignment between network and security teams. With standardized policies, shared telemetry, and coordinated alerts across all security and networking components, SASE enables NetOps and SecOps teams to improve IT efficiency, visibility, and protection.

With this in mind, it is important for organizations to have a comprehensive SASE strategy that accommodates both NetOps and SecOps goals, increases operational alignment, and is capable of supporting the organization’s needs for the foreseeable future. 

Modern enterprises rely on a number of network environments (data center networks, local area networks, wide area networks) and security solutions (firewalls, gateways, and access control for on-premises and cloud-based systems). Through technology and service integrations, SASE can provide visibility, policy orchestration, and protection across all of them.

With the ultimate goal of securely connecting users and applications wherever they are located or hosted, these integrations also help:

• Reduce the volume of security incidents
• Accelerate troubleshooting and problem resolution
• Simplify systems monitoring and management
• Improve policy standardization and enforcement
• Support regional compliance and data requirements
• Reduce capital and operational costs

Whether it is a custom-built architecture, a multivendor bundle, a fully managed service from a single vendor, or a variation thereof, every SASE solution should provide better alignment and integration between:

There are three primary consumption models for SASE solutions and services. While these consumption models have varying impacts on internal teams and operations, all of them break down traditional networking and security silos. As a result, SASE can be a forcing function that improves operational alignment and efficiency.

Read about our lessons learned in this Cisco Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) Deployment Case Study.

Summary

SASE architectures, solutions, and services provide secure connectivity between any user and any application, no matter where they are located or hosted. But the journey to SASE will be unique for each organization. The right model and approach will depend on existing technology investments as well as IT and business priorities. 

Cisco and our ecosystem of partners can help address your unique network and security needs with the most complete, flexible, and resilient SASE solution in the market.

You can choose from our broad SASE portfolio that combines best-in-class networking, client connectivity, security, and unique internet observability capabilities to deliver the outcomes you need. You can also choose from a range of simple, flexible SASE deployment and consumption models that address a variety of situations and requirements.

Our highly available global cloud security infrastructure provides secure access wherever users and applications reside. And our market-leading SD-WAN solutions provide the agility and features needed to deliver consistently high-quality experiences for your users. Together, our cloud security and SD-WAN solutions provide the industry’s most complete and uniquely integrated SASE capabilities.

Moving forward, Cisco is innovating around SASE at an accelerated pace through continuous integrations and continuous feature enhancements. We are evolving our offerings to provide the most flexible and easily consumable SASE services on your terms.

To learn more, visit the Cisco SASE Resource Center. 

What a remarkable time we are experiencing, both as humans and as network professionals. Over the past year, IT leaders and network professionals have been tasked with enabling remote workers, protecting data across a more distributed computing landscape, and delivering new services for users, customers, and partners. Many businesses accelerated their digital transformation efforts to meet these new requirements, leveraging the cloud and software as a service (SaaS) for increased flexibility, agility, and speed.

In our 2021 Global Networking Trends Report, we highlighted the ways network technologies are being used to improve business resilience—regardless of circumstance.

In this year’s report, we focus on an emerging trend that has big implications for the future: network as a service (NaaS).

On the heels of increasingly popular as-a-service (aaS) models such as SaaS and infrastructure as a service (IaaS), NaaS will invariably change how many companies acquire, deliver, and manage their networking capabilities. To learn more, we spoke with 20 IT leaders and surveyed 1534 IT professionals in 13 countries about how they perceive NaaS, its strengths and limitations, and whether they plan to adopt the emerging network consumption model.

We hope the data, perspectives, and guidance in this report help you better understand the benefits and implications of NaaS as you evolve your networking strategies.

— James Mobley, SVP Network Services, Cisco

It’s no trivial proposition to completely transform the way you consume and operate your network. You need some good business and technology reasons to make this transition to an as-a-service model. And you also need trusted partners you can rely on to keep your organization humming. Still, many organizations are highly motivated to make the move. Here are some key findings from our 2022 NaaS research:      

After more than 18 months of disruption and adaptation, the role that network technologies play in business survival and success has never been clearer—or more essential. Already a key enabler of remote work, networks are now being asked to support safer workplaces, hybrid work models, and evolving business operations. To do so, they need to work seamlessly across on-premises, multicloud, and edge environments. They need to provide a secure and consistent experience for all users, regardless of location, device, or method of connectivity. And they need to support both traditional and modern microservice-driven applications.

Because resources and bandwidth are often limited, many IT and networking leaders are investigating NaaS as an alternative way to address these challenges. But what exactly is it? 

NaaS can provide an alternative consumption model for a broad range of network elements, including wired and wireless LANs, WANs, and VPNs, as well as branch, data center, edge, multicloud, and hybrid cloud environments. It can be used to deliver new network models such as SASE. It can enable shifts in organizational models, such as the move to hybrid work. And as an on-demand service, NaaS can allow IT teams to more easily scale up or down, rapidly deploy new services, and optimize the balance between CapEx and OpEx.   

For some IT leaders with whom we spoke, NaaS represents a new and better form of networking that is greatly needed. They recognize that they are falling behind and losing the confidence of their users. And they believe NaaS can help them attain the latest technologies, meet a growing set of requirements, and match the accelerating pace of business.  

Choosing whether to adopt a NaaS model ultimately comes down to the business and technology challenges it addresses, as well as the benefits it delivers.

For the organizations we polled, agility remains top of mind. When asked about the biggest business challenges their network must address, nearly 50% of IT pros said responding to disruptions and 40% said accommodating new business applications and business projects. More than one-third of respondents identified the need for network agility as a major driver for NaaS, and half of the respondents said they anticipate NaaS allowing them to deliver increased innovation and business value. 

When we asked about the main benefits that IT pros expect from NaaS, primary decision makers cited the ability to focus on delivering business value instead of day-to-day infrastructure management.

Improving the response to network and security disruptions was another highly rated benefit of NaaS, as cited by 45% of network practitioners and 40% of primary decision makers. While the prioritization of security improvements came as no surprise, we were interested to learn that more than 25% of network practitioners and 33% of primary decision makers identified improved ecological sustainability as a big benefit of NaaS. 

Even more surprising was the low ranking of NaaS’s financial benefits.

With a flexible consumption model and subscription-based pricing, NaaS enables IT teams to shift from CapEx to OpEx spending and avoid large, recurrent investments in network infrastructure. Instead, spending becomes more consistent and predictable, and companies pay only for the resources they use. And yet these fiscal benefits were ranked much lower by IT leaders and network professionals compared to the agility, innovation, and management-offloading benefits of NaaS.

A common concern we heard about NaaS is that it requires a complete handoff of network operations, giving all responsibilities to the NaaS provider and leaving nothing left for the organization’s NetOps team to do. But the reality is, NaaS is not an all-or-nothing game when it comes to operational responsibility.

In a NaaS model, the provider takes responsibility for all aspects of network lifecycle management. That includes deploying, integrating, controlling, updating, monitoring, and repairing all elements of network infrastructure—including any of their customer’s on-premises equipment—required to deliver the contractual outcomes. Outcomes can include the number of connected users, sites, cloud providers, and applications, as well as the agreed-upon service levels, bandwidth, application performance, security provisions, compliance, and other requirements.

Using APIs, the customer’s NetOps team can also manage the integrations between NaaS and their existing systems to streamline IT workflows and processes. And they’ll likely want to work closely with the NaaS provider to ensure that SLAs and service-level objectives (SLOs) are being met. Regardless of operational responsibilities and handoffs, it’s clear that IT professionals are keen to reduce the burdens of infrastructure management. 

In shifting infrastructure maintenance and lifecycle management responsibilities to the provider, NaaS frees up a considerable amount of time. And it enables the customer’s NetOps team to focus on desired network outcomes rather than the technological and operational aspects of maintaining the infrastructure.  

In other words, network engineers shift from “flying the plane” to “calling the shots in the control tower.” But what types of shots do they anticipate calling? According to our respondents, 27% believe their IT staff would leverage their technical expertise—and a NaaS dashboard—to translate business needs into network policies. A surprising 73% of respondents said they would prefer third-party providers to carry out this business-critical role, possibly indicating a perceived shortage or lack of confidence in internal skill sets. 

NaaS impacts many areas of an IT organization, requiring new operating models, new integrations with existing processes and technologies, changing roles and skill sets, and a financial shift from CapEx to OpEx. With these wide-ranging implications in mind, the IT professionals we spoke with had mixed reactions to NaaS. And most were on opposite ends of the spectrum, being either hot or cold when it comes to NaaS adoption.

IT leaders’ perspectives on NaaS seemed to reflect their overarching networking philosophy. And those philosophies were primarily divided into two camps: “control IT” and “lean IT.” The ones with the former philosophy have not only a highly skilled staff, but also a strong belief that their teams should own and fully control the networking stack. Conversely, the latter group is seeking to consolidate their IT, reassess routine versus value-added tasks, and find ways to offload infrastructure maintenance. Not surprisingly, the organizations with a “lean IT” mind-set that have already shifted some of their IT resources to the cloud are very open to NaaS solutions.

While IT leaders share a broad set of concerns, a perceived loss of control is chief among them. Thirty percent of respondents questioned whether they will be able to meet future demands if they adopt NaaS. Other respondents were concerned about the loss of control for security (26%) and performance (20%). In actuality, NaaS is designed for greater on-demand scalability and faster support for the latest technologies. And security, performance, and other important control decisions still lie with the IT team, not the NaaS vendor.  

To address these concerns and hesitations, organizations can start small with one domain to test out the NaaS model. This would allow them to better understand NaaS capabilities and control points without significantly altering their network infrastructure or operations. They’d be able to experience and optimize the division of responsibility between the provider and their internal team, and learn how to work together to achieve the best outcomes. Once they have a full understanding of—and comfort with—the roles, responsibilities, and control points, they can scale and expand to other domains over time, leveraging the insights and best practices learned along the way.

Because of its impact on network operations and the diversity of ways it can be leveraged, NaaS adoption will be different for every organization. A NaaS readiness assessment and deployment roadmap can minimize complications and maximize success.

According to our respondents, 49% of IT leaders and 57% of network practitioners believe the best timing and circumstance for NaaS adoption is during a network infrastructure upgrade or refresh, when they are seeking to access new technology (automation, 100 Gigabit Ethernet, Wi-Fi 6, 5G, SD-WAN, SASE, etc.). Thirty-four percent of respondents said adapting an existing (brownfield) site where networking technology is already deployed is the ideal scenario for NaaS adoption. Interestingly, only 26% said a greenfield site would be the best fit for NaaS adoption. And only 23% said a phased approach, where domains are upgraded one by one with NaaS, would be the best scenario for their organization.  

With the network being a critical enabler of employee productivity, customer engagement, and business operations, choosing the right NaaS provider is no trivial task. Some of the IT leaders with whom we spoke have a real fear of losing control. And yet they are willing to give up a measure of control if—and only if—it is placed in the hands of a trusted partner. Whether that means working with a systems integrator, managed services provider, or value-added reseller, they’re most comfortable with established partners that already have a deep understanding of their network environment, business goals, and support needs.

For NaaS deployments, nearly a third of IT professionals in our survey viewed systems integrators as more trustworthy and competitively priced compared to network vendors. They also told us “trusted expertise” was much more important than “best-in-class infrastructure.” 

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2022 Global Networking Trends Sources 

1. Report Ocean, Global Network-as-a-Service (NaaS) Market Industry Dynamics, Market Size, and Opportunity Forecast to 2027, March 2021.