Versa Networks Unveils High-Performance SASE Hardware For Converged, Networking, Security Functions

One of the remaining standalone SASE specialists, Versa Networks has revealed two new unified SASE gateways capable of delivering 100+ Gbps throughput to help partners and end customers consolidate networking and security functions into a single piece of hardware.

SD-WAN-turned-SASE specialist Versa Networks is launching a new line of unified SASE gateways capable of delivering more than 100 Gbps throughput as the networking and security worlds continue to converge.

The increased performance that the two new gateways allow for will help partners and end customers consolidate networking and security functions into a single gateway, including switching, carrier-grade routing, SD-WAN, firewall, intrusion detection, said Kevin Sheu, vice president of product marketing for Versa.

Hardware hasn't kept pace, said Sheu (pictured above). In order to unify what used to be 12-15 boxes, depending on what your deployment looks like, you can't just magically put 15 [boxes] into one, so that's where you're starting to see a lot of operators make these really uncomfortable tradeoffs between convergence and scale. Hardware is so important because it is effectively a blocker to the path of SASE if you don't have the right amount of compute to support it.

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Versa's two new high-performance appliances include the Versa CSG5000 and the Dell PowerEdge R7515. The devices can come preloaded with the Versa Operating System (VOS) for a combined SASE architecture, according to Dogu Narin, head of product for Versa.

The two new appliances boast up to 120 Gbps of firewall throughput, 100 Gbps of SD-WAN throughput, and 40 Gbps of Next-Generation Firewall (NGFW) throughput, Narin said. This high throughput of the appliances can support computationally intensive processes such as encryption/decryption and deep packet inspection, ZTNA, CASB, SWG, DLP, IPS/IDS, anti-malware, and URL filtering.

Enterprises or service providers can use as single appliance or use multiple hardware devices as building blocks at their own locations to deliver SASE services to their end customers, he said.

VOS, Versa's SASE software stack, can be deployed in any private cloud, on any hypervisor, or on bare-metal appliances. VOS helps to support SASE by processing each packet only once and applying consistent policies across all network and security functions, Narin said.

When we think about the software, it is actually the beginning of that convergence story -- how you take network security, the SSE components, the edge components, all of that, and how it gets converted into a single piece of software so that you're not daisy-chaining different functions together, which really limits the ability to scale, Sheu said.

The Santa Clara, Calif.-based standalone SASE company lets partners provide a unified SASE offering via the company's cloud-based gateways, or, partners can deploy SASE stacks themselves using Versa's hardware, unlike the competition, which doesn't give the channel that option, Narin said.

The Versa CSG5000 and Dell PowerEdge R7515 are generally available today through the channel, according to the company.