Zero trust connectivity is a key foundational rock of the Zero Trust Exchange, providing access to superior cybersecurity and data protection services.
Last year at Zenith Live, we introduced our Zscaler Cloud Connectivity offering, which simplifies and secures migration to the cloud, as well as building apps in the cloud. This year, we are further extending zero trust connectivity to your branch sites with the introduction of Zscaler's branch connectivity solution.
Zscaler Digital Experience (ZDX) has become the fastest-growing product in the Zscaler portfolio. One of the key drivers is the constant line of innovative capabilities that we have been introducing on ZDX since its launch two years ago.
Continued Innovations in Zscaler Cloud Connectivity Solutions
Since launching our Cloud Connectivity offering last year we’ve been listening to feedback from our customers and making some impactful changes:
Simplifying Operations
Working together with Cloud Service Providers we’ve made it easier for customers to manage, operate, and execute their cloud workload security. We’ve focused on identity and attributes for cloud security policies, multi-user and non-persistent VDI desktops, and infrastructure as code enhancements.
Automating Segmentation
Cloud Connectivity now offers more granular least privilege control for app-to-app communications, down to host level, providing support for cloud native identity, grouping, ML-based policies, and more.
Unifying Multicloud
We’re adding Google Cloud Platform to our existing support for AWS and Azure, for customers with a multicloud strategy.
Equinix Partnership
Zscaler is partnering with Equinix to help customers achieve zero trust for private connectivity services. Customers can easily configure these capabilities through their Cloud Connector portal, and Equinix can now automatically direct traffic to Zscaler.
Introducing Zscaler Branch Connectivity
Connectivity has evolved over the past 50 years, reflecting changes in work styles and locations. We are now uniquely positioned to provide a powerful new way to connect to the Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange that reflects today’s flexible working realities.
Today SD-WAN is deployed widely, using site-to-site VPNs to connect users to applications, essentially perpetuating the old castle-and-moat model. This has brought WAN costs down, but leads to routing inefficiencies and potential risks from easier lateral movement between sites.
Complementing our Client Connector for employee computing devices, Zscaler has introduced a Branch Connector that provides a way for servers and IoT/OT devices on branch sites to benefit from the security inspection and controls provided by the Zero Trust Exchange. This Branch Connector can be deployed as either a lightweight virtual machine, or later this year, delivered via a dedicated plug and play appliance.
In combination with a branch gateway router, Branch Connectors take care of efficiently routing traffic without the need for site-to-site VPNs and all the associated complexity associated with the traditional network-centric approach. It’s now easier to provide turnkey café style working experiences across more branch sites.
Further Innovations in ZDX
ZDX launched in 2019, and helps Zscaler customers identify performance-impacting issues all the way from client devices to their applications. At Zenith Live we announced new capabilities in response to customer input.
Assisting service desk administrators
- ZDX now takes advantage of AI and modern machine learning techniques to provide guidance on potential causes of impacted performance, like slow Wi-Fi or DNS resolution times.
- Snapshots can be used to determine how performance is changing over time.
Self-help
By leveraging a small AI engine in the Client Connector, ZDX can provide end users contextual notifications indicating potential performance-impacting factors. For example, slow Wi-Fi can be indicated to the end user, along with potential remediation steps for self-help.
Incident detection
A new incident dashboard leverages machine learning to detect problems in an application or the network path, as well as the breadth of impact. Metrics and trends help to understand trending.
We’re excited to share more details about these innovations and have created more detailed blogs on each that you can find here:
