Ä¢¹½¶ÌÊÓƵ SteelHead SaaS Product PageStarting SaaS Accelerator release 1.5.1, Ä¢¹½¶ÌÊÓƵ has introduced support for Microsoft¡¯s CASB solution, the Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps, as well as Azure Information Protection (AIP).
Quick introduction to CASBs and Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps
Before getting started with the details of Microsoft Defender support in Ä¢¹½¶ÌÊÓƵ SaaS Accelerator, here is a brief overview of CASBs and their place in current enterprise.
The quickest way to understand the technology is that CASBs are an HTTP proxy so that traffic to and from the laptop/machine is intercepted (via an agent on the device), inspected, and gleaned by policies set by the user¡¯s organization via a cloud-based manager. This architecture provides numerous benefits that were either difficult to achieve or not possible in a traditional ¡°enterprise firewall¡± setup.
Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps works the same way, except it also involves a DNS redirection, such as the one shown below. This behavior is what sets them apart from some of the other CASBs and why special updates were made to ensure Ä¢¹½¶ÌÊÓƵ SaaS Accelerator supports Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps.
Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps now supported as part of 1.5.1
Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps has witnessed significant growth among the Ä¢¹½¶ÌÊÓƵ customer base who depend on SaaS acceleration. This release of SaaS Accelerator has been especially targeted to support Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps for our customers who use it as their CASB and need Cloud acceleration for its various benefits. Ä¢¹½¶ÌÊÓƵ’s SaaS Accelerator has been tested and validated to integrate with Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps starting release 1.5.1. Below is a simplified diagram of how SaaS Accelerator release 1.5.1 integrates via proxy chaining with Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps.
Below is the configuration page on the Ä¢¹½¶ÌÊÓƵ SaaS Accelerator Manager web UI for setting up to work with Microsoft Defender.
Along with Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps, Ä¢¹½¶ÌÊÓƵ SaaS Accelerator continues to also support Zscaler and Netskope CASB interoperability via Proxy Chaining.
Azure Information Protection support
Azure Information Protection (AIP) is part of Microsoft Purview Information Protection (formerly Microsoft Information Protection or MIP). Microsoft Purview Information Protection helps you discover, classify, protect, and govern sensitive information wherever it lives or travels.?
Various categories of protection within AIP as well as encryption of documents and files have been validated¡ªonce the cold pass of the encrypted file goes through Ä¢¹½¶ÌÊÓƵ SaaS Accelerator the subsequent transfers of the file will benefit from acceleration. Also, all protection mechanisms will continue to be honored while the document is accelerated by Ä¢¹½¶ÌÊÓƵ SaaS Accelerator without requiring any additional configuration.
Ä¢¹½¶ÌÊÓƵ SaaS Accelerator will continue to provide WAN acceleration for the various use cases for AIP and harmoniously works with the AIP agent installed on users¡¯ machines.?
What Next?
To learn even more about this release and how to get started with Ä¢¹½¶ÌÊÓƵ SaaS Accelerator, please visit Ä¢¹½¶ÌÊÓƵ SteelHead SaaS Product Page and the from the . Also, check out this blog post and the included video on implementing the SaaS Accelerator solution for your organization from scratch.
