Whether it’s a pandemic, war, or natural disaster, one thing is certain: disruption is inevitable. For information security professionals, the important question is whether your network is ready to keep operations running securely.

There are two essential tactics you can use to keep things running: provision additional VPN capacity for remote connections or adopt a secure access service edge (SASE) solution.

Both are workable strategies, but each has its own strengths and weaknesses that can lead your company to a state of readiness, or alternatively, leave you facing significant operational risk.

Before diving into solutions, step back: are you thinking tactically or strategically? Your tactical response might be “we need more VPN capacity right now,” but your strategic question should be “how do we build resilient, scalable remote access that supports business continuity regardless of the crisis type?”

This distinction matters because tactical solutions solve immediate problems, while strategic approaches create frameworks that adapt to multiple scenarios. This also doesn’t have to be about replacing what already works. Instead, it’s about complementing that approach when crisis strikes.

The Appliance Route

Adding more VPN appliances is a classic decision and is often the gut reaction for a lot of CISOs. It directly addresses the immediate problem of insufficient remote access capacity. This approach works well under normal circumstances, but it raises strategic questions for business continuity that reveal its limitations:

  • Do I add capacity to existing data centers, or spin them up at backup locations?
  • Do I use my current VPN provider, or implement a second one?
  • By adding these new VPNs, am I complicating my set-up and introducing potential security gaps?
  • How much more maintenance time is my team going to spend on the new VPN capacity?

These are all essential questions. If, on the one hand, you add capacity to existing data centers, that works well unless the data centers are the issue. The same goes for adding a new VPN provider.  A new VPN provider means a new agent for your workers, and potentially a new interface. How much more complicated and expensive does this additional emergency set-up become, and can you justify it to company leadership?

If your IT team prefers to own the infrastructure, then these questions may be worth answering, but for most companies the cost of overcoming these issues will have them searching for other solutions.

The Strategic Advantage of SASE

SASE represents a fundamentally strategic approach to providing remote access and network security during operational challenges. Instead of solving just the capacity problem, it addresses the broader challenge: How do we securely connect our workforce to business resources regardless of where they are or what crisis we’re facing?

This strategic approach anticipates multiple scenarios, not just remote work, but also site failures, supply chain disruptions, and evolving security threats. Strategic solutions let you connect thousands of users and new branch offices quickly and keep security consistent everywhere.

Imagine your primary data center floods while a cyber security incident affects your fallback plan. The VPN approach leaves you juggling multiple crisis responses, while SASE automatically routes users through unaffected points of presence—all of which happens seamlessly in the background.

SASE consolidates multiple security solutions into a single, cloud-delivered service:

  • Secure Web Gateway
  • Zero Trust Network Access
  • SaaS Security
  • Firewall-as-a-Service.

Because it’s cloud-delivered, with SASE your workforce can maintain the same security posture working remotely that they’d have in the office.

Cloud delivery also means that the solutions can scale to accommodate more users and locations as needed, without expensive procurement cycles or extensive maintenance.

And because it’s a converged service with multiple solutions in one, you can manage everything from a single, cloud-based dashboard.

The strategic advantage becomes clear during implementation. While VPN additions require separate procurement, deployment, and management processes, SASE provides a unified framework that scales effortlessly as needed. Your team then shifts from crisis firefighting to policy management within an established framework.

Crisis-Ready Office Security with SD-WAN

But what about the office? Perhaps this will be a crisis where utilizing available office space is critical. SASE has you covered there too with SD-WAN, which optimizes traffic steering for every available ISP connection in the office. SD-WAN also supports automatic failover to keep business applications running by switching between connections in the event of an outage.

If SASE’s strategic advantages align with your business continuity goals, implementation becomes the next consideration.

Why Choose Check Point SASE

Not all SASE solutions are created equal. The underlying architecture determines true resilience.

Check Point offers:

  • Hybrid architecture: On-device and cloud-based security means users connect directly to the internet without sacrificing security, achieving 10x faster performance than other solutions.
  • Global reach: 80+ points of presence (PoPs) ensure users always have a close onramp to our high-performance backbone.
  • Streamlined management: A unified dashboard inside Infinity Portal gives your team complete control over users and policies.
  • No rip-and-replace required: Check Point’s SASE integrates seamlessly with existing infrastructure allowing you to adapt SASE to your needs.

Don’t wait for a crisis to test your network’s breaking point.

See how Check Point’s SASE can help you build a resilient, crisis-proof business continuity plan. Book a demo today.

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