Palo Alto Networks Is Only ‘Leader’ On Single-Vendor SASE In New Gartner Magic Quadrant
The company was ranked above vendors including Fortinet, Cisco and VMware in Gartner’s inaugural Magic Quadrant for single-vendor SASE.
Palo Alto Networks was the sole vendor chosen to appear in the “Leaders” quadrant for Gartner’s first-ever Magic Quadrant for Single-Vendor SASE, ranking ahead of competitors in secure access service edge that include Fortinet, Cisco and VMware, according to the report published this week.
Gartner analysts included a total of eight vendors in the new Magic Quadrant ranking. Vendors are considered “single-vendor” providers of SASE when they offer an integrated platform featuring both the cybersecurity and networking components that make up a SASE offering.
[Related: 20 Hottest New Cybersecurity Tools At Black Hat 2023]
Demand for SASE has been surging as businesses turn to the technology to help provide distributed workforces with secure access to corporate applications and resources.
According to Gartner, single-vendor SASE offerings must provide SD-WAN as well as secure web gateway (SWG), cloud access security broker (CASB), zero trust network access (ZTNA) and network firewall capabilities.
Palo Alto Networks is the only “leader” on single-vendor SASE due to the “strong” functionality, large customer base and well-planned product roadmap for its Prisma SASE platform, according to the Gartner report released Wednesday.
On Friday, Palo Alto Networks CEO Nikesh Arora touted the Magic Quadrant ranking during the company’s quarterly call, as the company also disclosed that its SASE business generated more than $1 billion in bookings during it fiscal 2023, ended July 31.
In a recent interview with CRN, Arora said that the company’s SASE offering is a key part of Palo Alto Networks’ consolidated platform approach, which seeks to provide customers with best-of-breed tools “in an integrated fashion.”
“Today, we’re leaders in north of 14 categories in cybersecurity. We’re in the leadership quadrant for SD-WAN, for SASE, for network firewalls, for cloud security,” he said. “So we can go [to customers] and say, ‘Listen, you want to buy best-of-breed in the top right corner of any quadrant? We’ve got it.’ Plus, on top of that, we’ll give it to them in such a way that they work together.”
Other Quadrant Rankings
For the “visionaries” quadrant in the single-vendor SASE ranking, two vendors, Cisco and Forcepoint, were selected by Gartner analysts.
Another three vendors — Cato Networks, Versa Networks and Fortinet — ranked in the “challengers” quadrant for single-vendor SASE, according to the Gartner report.
In the “niche players” quadrant, Gartner analysts included VMware and Juniper Networks.
In contrast to the “single-vendor” approach, several major vendors — such as Zscaler — deliver SASE through integrations with third-party technologies that they don’t offer themselves.
Several prominent vendors that offer single-vendor SASE were not included in the Magic Quadrant ranking.
Netskope, HPE and Cloudflare were excluded because their full single-vendor SASE offering was not available by the April 12 cutoff date for inclusion in the report. Check Point was excluded because it didn’t meet enterprise adoption criteria for its offering by the cutoff date, according to the Gartner analysts.
SASE Vs. SSE
Prior to the debut of this single-vendor SASE Magic Quadrant, Gartner had released individual Magic Quadrant rankings for SD-WAN and for security service edge (SSE), the latter of which consists of the cybersecurity capabilities necessary for SASE.
In its latest SSE Magic Quadrant, released in April, Gartner had ranked Netskope, Zscaler and Palo Alto Networks as the three leaders.
Palo Alto Networks had also been ranked among the six leaders in Gartner’s 2022 Magic Quadrant for SD-WAN.
Gartner’s Magic Quadrant ranking is a highly influential and closely watched indicator of how key players compare in numerous segments of the tech industry.