As applications have migrated to the cloud and employees have demanded the flexibility to work from anywhere, maintaining a secure, efficient, and scalable network infrastructure, while providing a consistent user experience, has become a top priority for IT leaders. 

However, many organizations find themselves facing a patchwork of security tools and struggling with the convolutedness and vulnerabilities of legacy Virtual Private Networks (VPNs), which were designed for a very different era of remote access computing. Network leaders are looking for clarity on how to enable them to support their businesses to scale and grow while reducing the attack surface exposing their data to risk.

Complexity brings vulnerability

VPNs have long been the backbone of secure remote access, allowing employees to connect to corporate networks from outside the physical security perimeter. In the past, when most applications were hosted on-premises within the company's data center, this approach made sense. However, as businesses increasingly rely on cloud-based applications and services, the traditional VPN model has begun to show its design limitations.

One of the biggest challenges with legacy VPNs is that they can overcomplicate infrastructure. Modern enterprises are no longer confined to a single data center or geographic location. Employees access applications and data from multiple devices and locations, creating a web of connectivity that legacy VPNs struggle to manage. The traditional model of routing all traffic through a central VPN concentrator adds unnecessary complexity, slowing down network performance due to inefficient routing and creating bottlenecks that frustrate users.

This is compounded by the fact that many CIOs are forced to maintain existing legacy technology due to budget constraints or resistance to sweeping changes. As a result, IT leaders often find themselves relying on expensive point products to address specific issues, rather than implementing a more holistic platform solution. This patchwork approach can be costly and inefficient, leading to a fragmented infrastructure that is difficult to manage and prone to security vulnerabilities.

Many IT leaders’ careers can hinge on their ability to maintain network performance while keeping pace with the demands of the modern enterprise. Balancing these often competing priorities is no small task. To remain competitive and secure in today's digital landscape, organizations must be willing to rethink their approach to network security and infrastructure.

From patchwork to platforms

IT leaders are aware that they need to remove dependency on outdated hardware. This shift involves adopting cloud computing platforms that integrate networking and security into a single, cohesive solution, rather than relying on disparate single-purpose solutions to patch up legacy systems.

By embracing a platform approach, IT leaders can streamline their infrastructure and improve overall performance. This shift not only alleviates the burden of maintaining legacy hardware but also positions the organization to better adapt to the evolving needs of the business. Cloud-native platforms are designed with modern networking in mind, offering features like dynamic routing, load balancing, and traffic optimization that are critical to support today’s distributed workforce.

Moreover, these platforms are built to scale with the organization, allowing IT teams to easily accommodate growth without the need for constant hardware upgrades. This agility is particularly important in a world where the pace of business is accelerating, and the ability to quickly respond to new challenges can be a key differentiator.

A key advantage of switching to a cloud-native platform is simplifying cloud access for the end user. In the traditional VPN model, all traffic is routed through a central concentrator, which can lead to inefficient traffic patterns and latency. By contrast, a cloud-native approach allows traffic to be routed more directly, improving performance and providing a better user experience by moving the cloud on-ramp closer to the user. This is especially important in a hybrid work-from-anywhere environment.

Visibility brings trust

One of the most compelling advantages of a cloud-native platform is the enhanced visibility and control it provides to IT leaders. In a legacy VPN environment, it can be difficult to gain a clear understanding of network traffic and to diagnose issues or identify potential security threats when the ultimate destination is somewhere outside the corporate network. The visibility over data, advanced analytics and reporting tools available through cloud-native platforms help monitor all traffic, not just the traffic passing through the VPN, and plays a critical role in security.

A zero trust security approach operates on the principle that no user or device should be trusted by default, even if they are inside the network perimeter. Instead, access is granted based on a verification process that considers contextual factors, including the user's location, device, role and behavior. By giving continuous visibility, cloud-native platforms can provide unmatched contextual awareness, enforce dynamic security policies and allow for adaptive access to users, devices, applications, and data, minimizing the risk of unauthorized access or data breaches. It delivers on the principle of only giving the right amount of access, to the right people, under the right conditions through a continuous validation model.

As businesses bump into the limitations of legacy VPNs and outdated infrastructure, IT leaders must be willing to embrace a transformative platform approach that brings cloud access closer to the end user, enhances visibility and control, and supports a zero-trust security model. By doing so they future-proof their digital infrastructure and create a platform that enables their business to thrive.

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