Zscaler, HPE, Cisco Top SASE Market 650 Group Finds

Zscaler, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), Cisco, Fortinet, and Versa topped the leaderboard of secure access service edge (SASE) vendors in a report from 650 Group published today. Zscaler, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), Cisco, Fortinet, and Versa topped the leaderboard of secure access service edge (SASE) vendors in a report from 650 Group published today. The analysts examined the market trends that have helped to shape the product category and provided insights into the top players based on the completeness of their respective SASE software stacks and market potential. At its core, SASE is a melding of routing, edge compute, and security services into a single cloud delivered offering. To be included in the report, vendors had to have at least four of the five core SASE functions as identified by 650 Group. These capabilities include SD-WAN, secure web gateway (SWG), zero trust network access (ZTNA), cloud access security broker (CASB), and firewall-as-a-service (FWaaS). 650 Group did not exclude prominent SD-WAN or security vendors that have partnered with adjacent vendors to deliver a SASE platform. “Initially, not all of the SD-WAN players and not all the firewall-as-a-service players qualify to be called a SASE vendor,” 650 Group analyst Chris DePuy said. “But as they broaden out their portfolios or get acquired, more and more companies satisfy the condition of being included in the SASE definition.” This led to the inclusion of several SD-WAN vendors like HPE’s Aruba Networks, Juniper Networks, and VMware, which otherwise lack core security functionality offered by larger more established SASE vendors. “What’s going on with HPE Aruba is they acquired their way into the marketplace,” DePuy said, alluding to the HPE’s $925 million acquisition of Silver Peak last summer. To achieve a complete SASE offering, Aruba Networks has leaned heavily on Silver Peak’s existing relationships with cloud-security vendor Zscaler, which has focused on integrating with SD-WAN vendors rather than trying to buy or build its own. However, DePuy believes that Aruba’s deficiencies on the SASE security spectrum are likely to be short lived. If HPE wants to compete in a world where networking and security have converged, it needs to acquire a security company, he said. 650 Group’s SASE vendor ranking also included Palo Alto Networks, Huawei, and Ruijie Networks. The report also concludes that SASE is a symptom of a larger trend within the networking and security industry. “The security and networking industries are merging,” DePuy said. “Our forecast is that in two years, they will become the same industry.” SASE, he argues, is illustrative of this trend, and “just happens to be what everyone is talking about… SASE is not what we’re going to call the networking [and] security industry three, four, or five years from now.” In the meantime, 650 Group expects SASE product revenues will exceed $11 billion by 2025, and long term, “we expect SASE revenue growth to exceed that of SD-WAN or firewall-as-a-service,” DePuy added. The market research firm expects this growth to be accompanied by an increase in the number of SASE vendors and an uptick in consolidation. FWaaS and SD-WAN vendors will likely drive most of the acquisitions thanks in part to their large existing market shares, according to DePuy. 650 Group ralso identified cloud firewall and SD-WAN as two of the core revenue drivers in the SASE stack. “The leaders in SD-WAN are going to play to their strengths and the leaders in firewall-as-a-service are going to play to their strengths,” DePuy said. “Those are the two power bases from which most SASE growth and success are going to come from.” While still important, ZTNA, SWG, and CASB won’t be crashing the party any time soon, he added. DePuy also drew a distinction between next-generation firewall companies and cloud firewall companies “They’re actually working pretty hard to try to get market share there, but they actually don’t have it,” he said. The issue is that next-generation firewalls don’t fit nicely into the core SASE model as it’s laid out by Gartner. This leaves hardware-centric vendors in a tough spot because they will likely need to move to a more software-focused model. Some vendors like Fortinet, which acquired cloud security vendor Opaq as part of its own SASE build out, have managed to find a way to make it work in the interim.