SASE pros Cato Networks have announced that they have again expanded the Cato SASE Cloud Platform today by introducing Cato Digital Experience Monitoring (DEM). Today’s announcement of DEM is the third major expansion to the Cato SASE Cloud Platform in 2024, following the additions of extended detection and response (XDR) and endpoint protection (EPP/EDR) earlier this year. Cato DEM is immediately available to all Cato customers globally.
Shlomo Kramer, co-founder and CEO at Cato Networks, said: “A true SASE platform must evolve beyond secure connectivity without compromising on the elegance and simplicity that defines SASE. Cato DEM embodies that change, tapping the unsurpassed insight and usability of the Cato SASE Cloud Platform to transform user experiences worldwide.”
Cato DEM brings rich, contextual insight, end-to-end, for all user experiences with the easy deployment and elegance of use that defines the Cato experience. With Cato DEM, IT teams now have one solution for troubleshooting and planning optimal user experiences for all applications.
“We see DEM as a crucial component of the future SASE landscape, but only with the right platform,” said Shamus McGillicuddy, vice president of research at Enterprise Management Associates (EMA). “User experience is a primary currency for evaluating IT effectiveness, and building DEM on the right SASE platform will help ensure great user experiences. But to deliver on that mission, the SASE platform must provide visibility into all applications, offer ways to fix user experience problems with those applications, and have the necessary real user traffic insights for accurate analysis.”
The Limitations of Existing DEM Solutions
As businesses navigate the complexities of hybrid work and cloud migration, delivering superior user experiences becomes paramount. Existing tools are often inadequate, failing to address the user experience needs of private applications in the same way that they do for Internet-based ones. Additionally, these tools may lack the accuracy of real user data, leading to unreliable insights. Furthermore, their deployment can be complex, requiring significant IT integration efforts.
“Enterprises continue to have a mix of application traffic, some bound for the WAN, others for the Internet. As we look across the Cato SASE Cloud Platform, more than half (57 percent) of all traffic last quarter (Q3, 2024) was destined for the WAN, not the Internet,” said Eyal Webber-Zvik, vice president of product marketing and strategic alliances at Cato Networks. “An enterprise DEM solution must be able to monitor and fix user experience issues across both WAN and Internet applications.”
Cato DEM: Elevating User Experiences Elegantly and Easily
With Cato DEM, IT ensures optimal user experiences even during critical projects like cloud migration, global expansion, and hybrid work. As the underlying network connecting users to applications in private data centres, the cloud, and the Internet, the Cato SASE Cloud Platform can overcome network performance problems that otherwise undermine user experiences.
Seeing the underlying traffic enables Cato DEM to combine real user and synthetic data for more comprehensive, accurate, and contextual application insights. IT teams realise instant Time-to-Value by activating DEM through a simple toggle and tapping the historical application usage data already captured by Cato.
Cato DEM, a component of the SASE platform, offers IT teams enhanced visibility and control over network performance. Its comprehensive monitoring capabilities provide a detailed view of the network, from the Wi-Fi level to the WAN, enabling rapid identification of issues affecting user experience. By proactively monitoring network and device conditions, Cato DEM allows IT teams to anticipate and address potential problems before they impact users, ensuring smooth operations and increased productivity. Additionally, AI-powered analysis streamlines troubleshooting, reducing operational overhead and enabling IT teams to efficiently prioritise, investigate, and resolve user experience issues within the Cato XDR platform.
