Organizations are turning to cloud VPN services to support continued remote work

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By Anthony Spadafora
published

Over half of organizations have already migrated to a cloud VPN

VPN artwork
(Image credit: Shutterstock)

In an effort to further support their employees working from home, Organizations are migrating their VPN services to the cloud according to new research from NetMotion.

To compile its new “The Journey to SASE” report, the firm surveyed 750 leaders working in IT, security and networking across five geographical markets and eight sectors. Respondents shared their insights, familiarity and experience with Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) and other network security topics.

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SASE is a term that was first coined by Gartner in a study published during 2019 and while it may be tempting to think of it as a product category like a firewall, it's more like a framework or philosophy. SASE encompasses a wide range of technologies that are delivered as a service and are designed to support organizations' secure access needs.

Migrating to a cloud VPN

According to NetMotion's study, over half (54%) of organizations have already moved their VPN services from on-premise to the cloud and this includes VPN products hosted as SaaS offerings or those managed in private clouds such as Microsoft Azure or AWS.

Unlike traditional VPN services, a cloud VPN is not set up and maintained on a company server. Instead the daily operation of an organization's VPN is outsourced to a 'virtual private network as a service' (VPNaas). Cloud VPNs are designed to be compatible with a wide variety of cloud computing applications and offer a higher level of security.

When it comes to the countries where organizations are making the switch to cloud VPNs, Australian (62%) and American (60) organizations are leading the charge while Japanese (46%), British (50%) and German (52%) businesses are slower to migrate.

At the same time though, government and public safety bodies are also more apprehensive about adopting cloud-hosted VPN products with only 29 percent of organizations in these sectors currently using a cloud VPN. Organizations in the healthcare (72%), manufacturing (68%) and legal (56%) fields are the most likely to be utilizing a cloud VPN. 

Anthony Spadafora
Anthony Spadafora

After working with the TechRadar Pro team for the last several years, Anthony is now the security and networking editor at Tom’s Guide where he covers everything from data breaches and ransomware gangs to the best way to cover your whole home or business with Wi-Fi. When not writing, you can find him tinkering with PCs and game consoles, managing cables and upgrading his smart home.