Versa Networks, the Secure SD-WAN leader, today launched Versa Secure Access, the industry’s first solution delivering leading Secure SD-WAN services and private connectivity for employees who are remote or working from home. These employees can now securely connect to applications in both private and public clouds as part of Versa Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) services. The new solution is based on the Versa Operating System (VOS™) which powers Secure SD-WAN networks on-premises and in the cloud for thousands of customers globally.

With this new offering from Versa, end users for the first time can leverage a remote access service directly on their end devices that delivers all the benefits of Secure SD-WAN. This comprises an assured experience with network and application monitoring, all backed by an NSS-recommended integrated security suite. To protect the enterprise, which now has an expanded threat perimeter with the majority of connections being remote, Versa Secure Access offers the industry’s widest range of security functions in a Secure SD-WAN solution. These include stateful firewall, DOS protection, next-generation firewall, IPS, and URL filtering on end users’ client devices connecting privately to company resources hosted in private data centers, the public cloud and SaaS locations.

“Our research into the remote workforce environment indicated that increasingly, employees were connecting to corporate applications from remote locations (home, coffee shops and airports),” said Bob Laliberte, ESG Global. “With the pandemic, the ability to securely connect to those cloud and corporate applications has become a mandate. Versa Secure Access provides the requisite performance, ease of use, and most importantly, security for organizations to enable their employees to work from leveraging a secure SD-WAN solution.”

Unlike today’s VPN-based work from home solutions, Versa delivers the advantages of Secure SD-WAN remote access, including pervasive visibility of performance of network, application and security, with no additional hardware required.

“Businesses require secure, scalable, high-performance access to cloud services as well as corporate resources and business applications, particularly now with employees working from home,” said Vikram Phatak, CEO with NSS Labs. “Over the past several years Versa products have performed with consistent excellence in our tests; we expect their new SASE offering for user device protection from the cloud, Versa Secure Access, will do the same. We look forward to testing Versa Secure Access’ split tunneling, Secure SD-WAN, and application performance capabilities.”

Versa Secure Access is the first work from home solution that performs application segmentation where applications can be directed to the Internet at the client or a specific cloud gateway, delivering an assured experience for business applications leveraging Versa Secure SD-WAN technology to enable high performance for cloud and on-premises applications.

Today customers need a cloud-based scalable solution which will allow their employees to work remotely and securely while improving users application experience and reducing IT costs and complexity

The solution monitors network degradation and can take action such as packet loss correction, switching to a different gateway, or moving to different WAN connectivity such as WiFi, cellular or wired. As a result, Versa delivers improved application experience and remote worker productivity. Additionally, the Versa cloud-delivered model makes Versa Secure Access easier to deploy, manage and scale versus other work from home solutions.

“OmniClouds SD-WAN utilizes Versa Secure SD-WAN coupled with our dedicated telecom infrastructure to deliver an exceptional experience for our clients,” said Amr A. Eid , Group CEO, OmniClouds. “OmniClouds is offering Versa Secure Access to help students take advantage of distance learning, physicians to conduct remote tele-visit calls, and employees to reach virtual office desktops and public/private clouds securely, seamlessly, and with improved application performance.”

Versa Secure Access for working from home, the industry’s first from an SD-WAN provider, is available to Versa partners as a turnkey solution that can be deployed and offered as a managed service. Its advanced SD-WAN, SASE, and security benefits integrated in a managed and cloud-delivered service significantly reduce cost and complexity compared with on-premises solutions.

“This is an exciting addition to the Versa Networks’ range, adding new functionality to their already disruptive SD-WAN solutions and addressing a real opportunity in the market,” said Paul Eccleston, Executive Chairman at the Nuvias Group. “As businesses review their VPN implementations with a view to longer-term, robust solutions, Versa can address their need for dependable, secure access to enable the flexible workforce of the future.”

“Today customers need a cloud-based, scalable solution which will allow their employees to work remotely and securely, while improving users’ application experience and reducing IT costs and complexity,” said Michael Wood, CMO with Versa Networks. “Versa Secure Access is a natural extension to Secure SD-WAN and one of several important features of SASE where the benefits of Secure SD-WAN can now be extended to end user devices from the cloud.”

Available through Versa’s extensive global channel partner network, Versa Secure Access Service provides integrated security and user authentication capabilities using an enterprise’s own RADIUS, LDAP or Active Directory servers. The solution also supports two-factor authentication for enhanced security. Versa Secure Access uses industry standard IKEv2/IPsec stack with strong ciphers and large key sizes for protecting traffic. In addition, it delivers private connectivity for VPC-hosted applications, multi-cloud environments, and SaaS applications.