About the Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) category
What belongs in this category
The Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) category covers platforms that deliver networking and security together from the cloud. Typical entries join software-defined wide-area networking (SD-WAN), which routes traffic between branches, data centers and clouds, with the security service edge stack: secure web gateway, cloud access security broker, zero trust network access and firewall as a service, all managed from one console with one policy.
The difference from Security Service Edge (SSE) is networking: SSE covers the security services alone, and SASE adds the wide-area network. A single-vendor or tightly integrated SASE platform belongs here; SASE run for clients by a provider fits Managed SASE. Because SASE controls how users connect, a SASE platform can also enter Secure Access, and as a network product it qualifies for Network Security too.
Related categories to enter
Each category is judged separately, so you can enter a product in every category that matches what it does, with a separate nomination for each. Tailor each nomination to that category's focus. Entering several related categories gives the product more than one chance to be recognized.
How entries are judged
An independent jury of security practitioners, analysts and CISOs scores each nomination on leadership, innovation and impact. Each nomination competes in its category against organizations of similar size and region, so a mid-sized firm is not ranked against a global enterprise. Your entry package, any sponsorship and public votes do not affect the jury's scores.
Strong entries in this category show:
- Leadership — the network and users the platform serves: sites and users connected, points of presence or cloud regions used, traffic handled, and customers that run their wide-area network on it.
- Innovation — a SASE problem solved in a new way, such as one policy for networking and security, branch rollout without new hardware, or performance that matches or beats the old network.
- Impact — results for customers: appliances and circuits retired, sites brought online faster, user experience and outage figures, security incidents at branches. Give before-and-after figures.
The jury awards Gold, Silver or Bronze, or a Finalist badge, and results are published on this site and announced to the 600,000+ member Cybersecurity Insiders community. Every approved nomination also enters the separate Community Choice award, decided by public votes.
How to enter
A vendor can enter its own product or service, and a PR agency can enter it on a client's behalf. The nomination form has a confidential field for detail that is shared with the judges and not published, such as customer names, deployment figures or roadmap. Deadlines, pricing and entry steps are on the How it Works page.
