Experience Center Update: Your Unified SASE Experience is Here

The Most Comprehensive Zero Trust SASE Platform is Now Even Better

We’re redefining secure access service edge (SASE) with the latest update to Zscaler's Experience Center—providing a unified, intuitive platform experience where administrators can manage Zero Trust SASE. From cloud workloads to branch offices, users from offices to remote locations and from IoT to OT devices in factories, everything is now managed under one roof.

The journey to our latest update

We introduced Experience Center in August as a unified, intuitive, outcome-driven interface for Zscaler administrators. With interactive GenAI guidance and system-wide analytics, it provided a single centralized platform to manage security, data protection, and user experience.

In November, we expanded its capabilities adding Zero Trust Networking, including Zero Trust Branch and Zero Trust Cloud, effectively integrating our acquisition of Airgap Networks. These advancements gave administrators unprecedented visibility and control over their zero trust architecture, enabling customers to fully realize the operational benefits of a unified SASE platform.

Now, with our latest updates, it all comes together in one place.

What’s new in Experience Center?

The unified Zscaler experience now includes Zero Trust Networking. This update brings every key SASE capability into a single powerful interface, streamlining operations, increasing visibility, and reducing complexity. While other SASE platforms claim to unify access, only Zscaler delivers comprehensive Zero Trust SASE with native segmentation across users, workloads, devices, and locations.

The unified SASE experience brings several new capabilities across Zscaler’s SASE offerings to the console, including:

• Unified location management: Provision and manage branches, campuses, factories, data centers, and cloud locations in one unified console.
  Zero-touch provisioning: Simplify onboarding with pre-configured provisioning templates for physical Zero Trust Branch appliances.
  Unified operations and analytics: Streamline operations and optimize connectivity and security through a consistent, user-friendly interface.
  End-to-end zero trust segmentation: Segment users, devices, workloads, and apps at both macro and micro levels, across all environments—branches, factories, cloud, and IoT/OT networks.
   

A closer look at the new capabilities in Experience Center

1. Unified Location Management

Secure connectivity management for all locations. Manage all locations—cloud internet edges, branches, data centers, OT/IoT-connected factories, and legacy SD-WAN connected locations—in one view. This unification allows you to centralize network, security, and device policies with greater simplicity, agility, and consistency. No more toggling between interfaces or relying on separate tools for site-by-site administration.

How it works: Locations represent points from where an organization’s traffic is sent to the Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange. This includes IPSec/GRE tunnels or automated branch and cloud connectors that handle traffic forwarding. Unified Locations provides a single workflow and console view of Zero Trust connectivity, allowing administrators to manage branch connectors, cloud connectors, and IPSec/GRE tunnels from one interface.

Why it matters: With Zscaler’s unified experience, every location benefits from zero trust segmentation, ensuring that users, devices, and apps communicate directly with the Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange platform without firewalls, VPNs, or flat networks that allow lateral movement. Unified Locations streamline configuration and operations for unified workflows across all location types.

2. Zero Trust Branch

Secure connectivity without lateral movement. In a Zero Trust Branch architecture, branch offices operate like secure cafés—users and devices connect directly to applications through the Zero Trust Exchange. This approach eliminates site-to-site VPNs, MPLS links, and traditional SD-WAN, preventing any lateral threat movement.

How it works: In a Zero Trust Branch, Zscaler Edge appliances connect branches directly to the Zscaler cloud. Zscaler Zero Trust SD-WAN replaces traditional SD-WAN, VPNs, and MPLS while enabling secure, optimized app performance. It also manages ISP connections, applying powerful inspection and analytics capabilities for threat and data protection across all user, device, and server traffic. Zero-touch provisioning allows admins to set up and manage appliances quickly via templates in the Experience Center console.

Why it matters: By eliminating the flat, routable network between sites, Zscaler removes the need for firewalls at each branch. Users connect directly to apps, not the network, ensuring no unnecessary trust is granted, and attackers have no pathway for lateral movement.

3. Zero Trust Device Segmentation

Microsegmentation to secure IoT, OT, and legacy devices. While many platforms claim device segmentation, Zscaler actually delivers it—down to a network of one. This means every connected device is isolated from others, and no lateral movement is possible, even within the same site.

How it works: Traditional network segmentation methods like VLANs, NAC, proprietary switches, and east-west firewalls are no longer needed. With Zscaler Zero Trust Device Segmentation, admins can manage segmentation policies for every connected device, from the latest endpoints to legacy OT systems. Every device is automatically identified, discovered, and segmented in hours, not weeks. Remote technicians and vendors can securely access devices using Privileged Remote Access—a browser-based, clientless solution with session recording and file sandboxing for added protection.

Why it matters: Zero Trust Device Segmentation reduces operational complexity and speeds up deployment by reducing dependencies on VLANs, firewalls, and specialized switches while still interoperating with existing network-based segmentation solutions like VLANs. It effectively prevents lateral movement of threats like malware and safely enables third-party access with zero trust remote access controls, ensuring secure, controlled connectivity without exposing the network.

4. Zero Trust Cloud

Secure connectivity for workloads in public clouds. Cloud workloads require the same security and connectivity principles as branch offices. Zscaler Zero Trust Cloud Connectors provide direct secure connectivity for workloads in AWS, GCP, and Azure, eliminating the need for site-to-site VPNs or insecure connectivity models. Learn more about Zscaler Zero Trust Networking for Cloud here.

How it works: Zero Trust Cloud Connectors are purpose-built gateways that connect cloud workloads directly to the Zero Trust Exchange. Unified security policies and comprehensive TLS/SSL traffic inspection help expose and stop threats like ransomware, eliminate sensitive data leaks, and prevent lateral threat movement.

Why it matters: Eliminate complexity from VPNs and agent-based approaches. Workload-to-workload security ensures traffic between VMs and applications is fully protected. Zero Trust Cloud provides unified control for all cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, Azure) from one interface to improve security and decrease complexity, reducing operational costs.

Key differentiators of Experience Center

1. Built on the Zero Trust Exchange: No flat networks, no unnecessary trust. All communications between users, devices, and applications are brokered through the Zero Trust Exchange, and access is granted dynamically based on user, device, and app context.
2. Unified SASE console: One platform, one experience, one console. Unlike piecemeal solutions, Zscaler offers one place to manage it all: user access, device segmentation, security policies, cloud workloads, and branch connectivity in one unified cloud native experience.
3. End-to-end zero trust segmentation: Eliminate all lateral movement across users, devices, workloads, and locations without VLANs, east-west firewalls, or NAC solutions. Zscaler segments IoT/OT devices, VPCs, and applications at the macro and micro levels across branches, factories, and cloud.
4. Dynamic workflows with GenAI assistance: Guided workflows with AI-based assistance provide policy recommendations, along with context and instructions to help streamline administrative tasks and troubleshooting.
    
    

What this means for you

With these Experience Center updates, Zscaler offers the industry’s first truly unified SASE experience. Now, administrators can manage zero trust networking and segmentation for users, workloads, devices, and locations—all from a single interface—providing:

• Simplified operations: Leverage a single platform for user, branch, cloud, and device management.
• Enhanced visibility: See and control all traffic and connections in a unified view.
• Reduced complexity: Remove reliance on traditional SD-WAN, VPNs, and east-west firewalls.
• Tighter security: Enforce zero trust principles everywhere, eliminating lateral movement.

By combining advanced segmentation with zero trust networking, Zscaler is leading the way in delivering the most comprehensive and unified SASE platform on the market.
 

The future of SASE is here

Zscaler’s unified SASE offers differentiated product capabilities for connectivity and security across users, branches, factories and the cloud, including:

• Zero Trust Branch: Connect and secure branch, campus and factory locations across your infrastructure.
• Zero Trust Device Segmentation: Segment OT/IoT devices into a “network of one” without the complexity of east-west firewalls, NAC, or specialized switches.
• Zero Trust Cloud: Secure workloads across public and private clouds by eliminating the attack surface, stopping lateral movement, reducing complexity, and cutting operational costs.
   

Get a closer look: request a demo

Ready to experience the unified SASE administrative experience for yourself? Contact us for a demo to see how Zscaler's Experience Center simplifies zero trust administration like never before.