Cato DEM helps IT teams overcome network performance problems

Cato Networks expanded the Cato SASE Cloud Platform by introducing Cato Digital Experience Monitoring (DEM).

This announcement 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.

A true SASE platform must evolve beyond secure connectivity without compromising on the elegance and simplicity that defines SASE,” said Shlomo Kramer, CEO at Cato Networks. “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 remain:

• Inadequate, addressing user experiences for Internet-based applications but not private applications
• Inaccurate, lacking the insight of real user data
• Difficult to deploy, requiring complex IT integrations

“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

• 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 centers, 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 realize instant Time-to-Value by activating DEM through a simple toggle and tapping the historical application usage data already captured by Cato.

Key capabilities of Cato DEM as part of the SASE platform

• Visibility: IT teams can now quickly pinpoint network problems impacting the user experience. With hop-by-hop visibility across the Wi-Fi network, the network edge, and the WAN, Cato DEM provides end-to-end visibility across all user experiences.
• Proactive experience management: By continuously monitoring network and device conditions, Cato DEM allows IT teams to anticipate and mitigate issues before they affect the user experience, ensuring smoother operations and higher productivity.
• Improved Operational Efficiency: By leveraging AI-powered engines, Cato reduces the operational overhead normally incurred when troubleshooting user experience issues. Cato analyzes complex data relationships and surfaces DEM recommendations within Cato XDR. IT operations can prioritize, investigate, and remediate user experience problems without switching to other tools.

Availability

Cato DEM is immediately available to all Cato customers globally.