Palo Alto Networks and GTT to launch managed SASE platform

Palo Alto Networks and cloud networking provider GTT Communications announced Tuesday that they will partner on a new managed SASE offering. The new platform will use Palo Alto's Prisma Access functions to provide cloud-delivered, managed security, primarily to small and midsize clients with geographically distributed users.

GTT announced in a press release that the new Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) offering will offer work-from-anywhere zero trust by verifying users based on their identities, devices and applications, rather than physical locations or IP addresses. Prisma Access also supports standard SASE features such as firewall as a service, DNS security and cloud secure web gateway. The SASE platform is aimed at companies with large populations of remote users.

In the release, GTT COO Don MacNeil called readily deployable security like SASE "the centerpiece of [GTT's] product strategy." The communications company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in October, closely following the September sale of its infrastructure division to I Squared Capital for $2.1 billion. Palo Alto and GTT have not announced the price of the managed SASE service, or when it will be available for purchase.

When the platform does launch, it will enter a crowded SASE market; Fortinet, Cisco and Zscaler all offer SASE platforms, both managed and unmanaged. Palo Alto also has other managed services partners, such as AT&T and Wipro, and offers Prisma Access as a standalone, unmanaged SASE service powered by CloudGenix SD-WAN. GTT has partnered with both VeloCloud and Fortinet in the past to offer managed SD-WAN, but this will be their first foray into managed SASE.

"This is a big get for GTT; Palo Alto Networks is a good partner, great security provider, so this is a strong offering for them," said Christopher Rodriguez, an analyst at IDC. "And for Palo Alto Networks, it's more exposure -- many partnerships, lots of different routes to reach buyers."

Palo Alto has seen success leveraging partnerships and acquisitions before, most notably by building out its SD-WAN offering with the purchase of CloudGenix in 2020. Since the acquisition, the company's SASE and SD-WAN has historically been cloud-first. IDC's 2021 SD-WAN Vendor Assessment Marketscape report points out that "While the company offers options for customers to manage their SD-WAN and security services on premises, the company's strength is in cloud-managed SASE, which could be a limitation for some customers that do not want to embrace a cloud-based security offering."

Madelaine Millar is a news writer covering network technology at TechTarget. She has previously written about science and technology for MIT's Lincoln Laboratory and the Khoury College of Computer Science, and covered community news for Boston Globe Media.