Secure access service edge (SASE) is a powerful model for delivering security services closer to users and applications.
By Nirav Shah and Andres Herrera at Fortinet
But for many organisations, especially in healthcare, government, financial services, and defense, routing traffic through third-party cloud environments isn’t just an architectural choice. It’s a regulatory red line.
In these industries, data sovereignty, privacy, and jurisdictional compliance are non-negotiable. Even when cloud-based SASE services are technically feasible, many organisations must consider legal constraints, operational risk, and policy requirements.
To meet these demands without giving up the benefits of SASE, a new model has emerged: sovereign SASE. It allows organisations to deliver the full spectrum of SASE capabilities: zero-trust network access (ZTNA), secure web gateway (SWG), cloud access security broker (CASB), Firewall-as-a-Service (FWaaS), and secure SD-WAN.
Sovereign SASE enables organisations to meet data residency, privacy, and operational requirements without compromising security, user experience, or scalability.
What Is Sovereign SASE? A Cloud Alternative for Full Data Control
Sovereign SASE is a deployment model in which security processing and traffic inspection happen entirely within trusted, organisation-controlled environments.
Unlike traditional cloud SASE solutions that rely on vendor-managed points of presence (POPs), sovereign SASE keeps user traffic, logs, enforcement, and telemetry local, on-premises or in a private data center.
This approach eliminates data offloading, strengthens compliance, and enables consistent policy enforcement, all without sacrificing performance or agility.
The pillars of Private, Compliant SASE Deployment
Sovereign SASE is built on three foundational principles:
- Data sovereignty – Organisations maintain full control over where data resides, how it’s inspected, and who has access. Data never leaves defined jurisdictions, and all inspection remains within approved boundaries.
- Controlled private infrastructure – Security services, including SWG, ZTNA, and NGFW, run entirely within the organisation’s infrastructure. No user traffic is sent to third-party cloud services for analysis or enforcement.
- Service autonomy – The organisation defines how and where SASE services are deployed, based on internal policies and requirements. This includes control over infrastructure placement, scaling, and service design.
Together, these pillars ensure compliance with privacy regulations, reduce risk, and deliver operational transparency, which is critical for data-sensitive enterprises and public-sector agencies.
How Sovereign SASE Delivers Full Stack Security On-Prem
A Sovereign SASE architecture includes three tightly integrated layers:
- Control plane – The centralised management and orchestration hub. Security policies and configurations are created here and pushed downstream to enforcement nodes.
- Data plane – Deployed inside the organisation’s infrastructure, the data plane executes traffic inspection and policy enforcement. It includes core SASE functions like ZTNA, SWG, NGFW, and CASB.
- User layer – Users connect to security enforcement points hosted within the private infrastructure. Endpoint agents validate posture, enforce ZTNA access rules, and apply real-time security policies.
This integrated approach ensures performance remains high, policies are consistently enforced, and no sensitive data leaves the organisation’s perimeter.
Why Sovereign SASE Is a Full Platform, Not Just Another Product
Sovereign SASE is not a cloud-delivered service. It’s a fully integrated platform that includes all the components needed to deploy and manage private SASE environments at scale.
Core characteristics include:
- Integrated technology stack – Includes endpoint agents, secure gateways, firewalls, and orchestration, all designed to work as one system.
- Unified orchestration and visibility – Administrators manage control, data, and user layers through a single pane of glass, with real-time visibility into traffic and outcomes.
- Consistent policy enforcement – Intent-based policies are applied uniformly across all services and users, without blind spots.
With Sovereign SASE, organisations get the power of a cloud-native architecture without the cloud dependency.