Can The Use of Software-Defined Perimeters Replace the Need For VPN?

Recent studies, funded by DH2i and conducted by Virtual Intelligence Briefing (ViB), known as “Virtual Private Networks (VPN) Report, 2022,” have identified emerging trends and discoveries regarding the usage rates of VPNs. These findings pertain to issues such as VPN security, the difficulty of configuration, cost-related concerns, and limitations in disaster recovery.

CISCO On The Lead

According to the survey results, Cisco continues to be the top VPN brand, with a current usage rate of 53 percent among the respondents. However, its dominance in the market has declined by 15 percent, while its competitors, particularly F5, have experienced an increase in their market share.

Usage Of VPNs

Regarding the use of VPNs, most of the individuals surveyed (85 percent) stated that the main reason for using VPNs was to enable individual users, usually employees, to connect to an organization’s internal private network.

The analysts were surprised by the fact that the percentage of respondents using VPNs for linking to an organization’s internal private network was not higher, especially considering past survey results. DH2i’s Don Boxley commented on this, stating that the world had witnessed an unparalleled increase in the number of individuals working from home in 2020, a trend that has continued for many to this day. Given this situation, it would have been logical to assume that the percentage of VPN usage would have risen to nearly 100 percent in the most recent survey.

Boxley goes on to state that the lack of increase in VPN usage was surprising, which implies that the deployment of remote VPN users may have already reached a saturation point. The reason for the deceleration in VPN adoption may be due to the fact that prior to 2020, VPN usage was limited, and therefore, easy to manage. The sudden rise in remote VPN users following the pandemic led to a corresponding rise in issues related to VPNs, including security problems, which caused difficulties.

Other Factors

The adoption of VPNs has also been influenced by other factors such as limitations in disaster recovery, slow connection speeds, constraints in bandwidth, complexity in configuration and management, and high costs.

The 2022 report reveals a reduction of 10 percent in VPN usage for site-to-site connectivity. However, there was an increase of almost 10 percent in VPN usage to link to cloud-based services from an on-site location, indicating a trend related to the pandemic of greater reliance on cloud-based infrastructure.

The survey identified another trend in the use of microservices/containers, which saw a rise of 42 percent. This suggests that container technology will be integral to the future of application development and deployment. In contrast, the use of multi-cloud remained static at 15 percent.

What Next?

There are indications that organizations are exploring alternative solutions to VPNs, such as the software-defined perimeter (SDP). The SDP presents a viable option for fulfilling the connectivity requirements of remote users, multi-site/multi-cloud setups, and IoT devices.

Boxley clarifies that the Zero Trust network access tunnels offered by the SDP provide segmentation at the application level and render untrusted access invisible. This eliminates the risk of lateral network attacks that are prevalent with VPNs and decreases the necessity for complex firewall policies.

Read the original article on Digital Journal.

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