Guest: David Ginsburg (LinkedIn)
Company: Aryaka (Twitter)

Enterprises are facing numerous challenges as they move toward multi-cloud architectures, particularly with distributed hybrid workforces and the security complexities this brings. Aryaka, based in the San Francisco Bay area, offers an outsourced WAN service that integrates connectivity and security to address these challenges with a flexible managed services environment.

In this episode of TFiR: Let’s Talk, Swapnil Bhartiya sits down with David Ginsburg, VP of Product and Solutions Marketing at Aryaka, to discuss Aryaka’s offerings in the SASE space and how this relates to zero trust. He goes into depth about the current challenges enterprises are facing with multi-cloud architectures and how Aryaka’s Zero Trust WAN is helping marry security and connectivity.

Key highlights from this video interview are:

• Founded in 2009, Aryaka originally started out in the managed WAN optimization and WAN acceleration space as a managed service. Ginsburg discusses Aryaka’s move into the SASE space and what sets them apart from their competition.
• The industry has pivoted towards network security in recent years yet zero trust can still be confusing. Ginsburg explains how Aryaka defines zero trust, telling us they think of it in terms of the need for security and connectivity for WAN and the architecture to allow enterprises to consume these capabilities wherever they are.
• One of the key drivers for WAN is that enterprises are moving to multi-cloud architectures which presents connectivity challenges and results in more complex security architecture. Ginsburg discusses how enterprises want simplification to manage these complexities.
• Ginsburg talks about the value proposition Aryaka brings to the market, telling us that unified SASE implies a tightly coupled managed offering, bringing together the connectivity and the network security and that there are only a few vendors that have been categorized as unified SASE. He discusses their multi-layer architecture which gives the enterprise flexibility on how to consume the service.
• Aryaka builds its own technology, offering it as a managed service, whereas other technology vendors build the technology, but then hand it off, which can result in a disjointed experience should the enterprise need new functionality, for instance.
• Ginsburg explains that the managed service approach of SASE fits well with the trends enterprises have been following over the past decade as they moved toward the cloud consumption model. He compares the cloud consumption model to the network and network security consumption model and the similarities they are seeing.
• Enterprises are facing challenges following COVID and now the Russia-Ukraine war, and with it, Ginsburg tells us that CIOs are increasingly being called the transformational CIOs, which come with significant pressure. However, it has been predicted that there will be a shortage of over 3.5 million skilled security personnel over the next 5-10 years. Enterprises are also coming under pressure to do more with less.
• Ginsburg discusses the three ways Aryaka is helping enterprises address some issues: with zero-trust WAN which offers performance and security, while still enabling enterprises and their needs to evolve so that their business objectives are still met for the future. Furthermore, by offering a flexible managed services environment that is tailored to their skill sets, capabilities, and the size of their IT department.

The summary of the show is written by Emily Nicholls.