VMware has announced a new agreement with BT which will see the communications service provider offer its customers VMware Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) as a global managed service.
Building on the pair’s existing close relationship, the agreement combines BT’s networking capabilities and in-depth security expertise with VMware technology to help customers accelerate their digital transformation.
BT says the managed service will provide employees with flexible, secure, and reliable access to cloud-based applications and services, deployed in private clouds, SaaS, or at the enterprise edge. It also aims to support adoption of technologies such as the IoT and hybrid working.
As part of the single-vendor ecosystem managed service, BT will provide full end-to-end support across networking and security, protecting access to apps and data across private, hybrid, and multi-clouds.
“Many organisations are deploying cloud networking with SD-WAN technology,” commented Scott Cowling, director of Software Defined Networks at BT. “SASE takes this approach to the next level with an architecture that enables delivery of networking, security, and edge compute services from the cloud.
“Launching our managed VMware SASE solution will help customers address networking and security challenges seamlessly as one.”
Ultimately, the SASE solution has been designed to combine the network performance benefits of SD-WAN with integrated security services and the ability to support modern distributed applications.
Its capabilities will be delivered as a service from a global network of more than 150 points of presence (PoP) deployed by VMware and its SASE service partners. BT said it will also peer its network PoPs with VMware PoPs to enhance the user experience.
The offering launches with features including URL filtering, in-line cloud access security broker (CASB), content filtering, as well as content inspection. VMware and BT also plan to introduce new features to the managed service over the coming months.
“Leading service providers like BT have modernised their networks so they can deliver a new category of services to enterprise customers,” said Craig Connors, vice president and general manager for VMware’s SASE business.
“SASE has emerged as the blueprint for modern networking and security, and we are pleased BT has selected VMware SASE to simplify their customers’ multi-cloud journey.”
