Versa Networks Inc. today announced the general availability of Sovereign SASE-as-a-Service, a fully managed sovereign secure access service edge offering delivered from infrastructure operated entirely within an organization’s legal jurisdiction.

The solution has been designed to provide comprehensive SASE functionality, with the entire data, control and management planes contained within that same jurisdiction, a requirement for organizations operating under strict data residency and regulatory compliance mandates.

Most existing SASE services available today are not fully sovereign. They may offer localized inspection and enforcement but are limited to a handful of countries because operational control and management often reside outside the jurisdiction where data is processed. Versa also claims that some vendors mask their offering as sovereign by offering gateways on customers’ premises. But that does not address the gap, as operational sovereignty requires more than the location of a gateway.

“Many enterprises invested in sovereign cloud strategies, only to discover their security and networking control planes were outside their jurisdiction,” said Versa Chief Executive Kelly Ahuja. “Deploying a cloud SASE provider’s appliance on customer premises does not make a solution sovereign. True sovereignty requires control over where policy is enforced, where control and management occur and who controls and governs that data while it is in motion.”

Versa’s new Sovereign SASE-as-a-Service addresses the data sovereignty issue by ensuring that the data, control and management planes operate entirely within the customer’s legal jurisdiction. The company’s approach extends sovereignty to how traffic is inspected, routed, logged and governed. Versa is positioning the service as a way for enterprises to reduce compliance exposure without having to build and operate their own infrastructure.

The new service offers the full Versa SASE stack — including secure web gateway, cloud access security broker, firewall-as-a-service, zero-trust network access and software-defined wide area networking — through infrastructure hosted and operated within a single jurisdiction.

Enterprises can connect branch offices, remote users, data centers and cloud environments into a unified fabric, with traffic inspection, policy enforcement and logging handled within the sovereign environment. The service is delivered in a fully managed model, with Versa operating and maintaining the platform while customers consume it as a cloud service.

“Delivering sovereign SASE as a managed service represents a structural shift in the market,” said Jim Frey, principal analyst for networking at Omdia, “Until now, sovereign architectures were largely limited to national operators or organizations with the resources to build and operate their own infrastructure. A managed model lowers the barrier for regulated enterprises that require jurisdictional alignment without taking on that operational burden.”

Versa has raised $316 million in funding, including rounds of $84 million in June 2021 and $120 million in October 2022. Investors include Sequoia Capital Operations, Artis Ventures, Mayfield Fund Management, BlackRock Inc., Verizon Ventures, Comcast Ventures, Silicon Valley Bank, Liberty Global Ventures, Princeville Capital, RPS Ventures and Triangle Peak Partners.

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