Accenture partners with Palo Alto Networks to improve visibility across IT networks

Accenture and Palo Alto Networks are collaborating to deliver joint secure access service edge (SASE) solutions powered by Palo Alto NetworksAI-powered PrismaSASE, enabling organizations to improve their cyber resilience and accelerate business transformation efforts.

The transition to remote work and multi-cloud environments means that users, applications and data are distributed across multiple networks, resulting in increased risk and complexity. SASE solutions, which are cloud-based, provide highly granular authentication and authorization, giving organizations a better understanding of the users in their environments and enabling them to control what applications and systems can be accessed.

“Organizations are seeking to reduce the risk of managing their increasingly complex IT environments—in which new technology is layered on top of legacy infrastructure—while ensuring business resilience,” said Rex Thexton, who leads Accenture’s cybersecurity protection business. “We’re excited about expanding our partnership with Palo Alto Networks to offer clients an efficient way to adopt SASE solutions, regardless of where they are in their resilience journey.”

Prem Iyer, SVP Ecosystems, Palo Alto Networks, said, “SASE represents a logical step in the evolution of enterprise data networks and is key to building the enterprise of the future, with continuous security delivered at scale. By combining our expertise with that of Accenture, we have the opportunity to deliver innovative solutions that provide granular visibility into each connection and user on the network, facilitating easier and more effective management of distributed and dispersed workforces.”

The joint solutions provide significant benefits for organizations. They offer rapid transformations through reduced complexity and greater efficiencies with fewer vendors, tools and technology stacks as well as improved visibility with fully integrated threat prevention security. This SASE offering with integrated services includes:

SASE diagnostic and advisory services: These help clients reimagine their network security architecture and expedite cloud adoption. Services include environment assessment and recommendations for the most appropriate zero trust and SASE approach, leveraging a data-driven diagnostic tool to identify the right network architecture to improve the organization’s security postures in cloud-native and hybrid IT environments. The tool also helps optimize processes, rationalize legacy network stacks, and simplify network security operations.

SASE implementation services: These comprehensive services for secure network modernization and edge security—from design to deployment—help organizations unlock digital transformation opportunities and define a smooth path to zero trust. They cover network segmentation and edge security using Palo Alto Networks’ SASE solution, which helps ensure the security of users and branch offices while also prioritizing user experience. This solution can cover both the SSE to support remote workers as well as SD-WAN for branch offices.

SASE-as-a-managed-service: Enterprises benefit from an end-to-end offering with Prisma SASE with zero trust network access (ZTNA 2.0) as the secure foundation for an agile, cloud-enabled organization. The solution includes a cloud-managed wide-area networking (WAN) component to leverage the major cloud providers’ global networks based on Palo Alto Networks technology. The service provides the scalability and advanced security capabilities required to create trusted networks, while reducing upfront investment costs and optimizing network and security operations for greater agility, and reliability.

Working with Accenture and Palo Alto Networks, Comcast Business is leveraging Prisma SASE solutions to help protect their network assets across a dynamic workplace that spans office, remote and cloud environments.

“Comcast Business is committed to leveraging a SASE framework to bring compelling network and security solutions to our customers—and our collaboration with Accenture and Palo Alto Networks expands our capability to do so,” said Shena Seneca Tharnish, VP of Cybersecurity Products, Comcast Business. “By providing a cloud-delivered security platform, Comcast Business is able to protect business applications from the branch office and extend that protection to users working from anywhere.”

Accenture is also adopting core components of Palo Alto Networks’ PrismaAccess and PrismaCloud solutions as part of its strategy to enhance security for its client-centric workforce, many of whom work remotely.

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