Roberto Popolizio
Updated on: June 27, 2025
Today’s networks span offices, homes, and the cloud, but security often falls behind the need for speed.
In this exclusive interview with SafetyDetectives, Renuka Nadkarni, Chief Product Officer at Aryaka, explains why keeping security and network teams separate no longer works and how a single SASE platform makes both faster connections and better protection simple for everyone.
Read on to discover how your organization can streamline operations and safeguard its network with Aryaka’s Unified SASE.
In 2–3 sentences, why does your company exist? What’s the fundamental pain point or flaw in your industry it was designed to solve?
Aryaka was founded to eliminate the trade-off between high-speed networks and robust security. Our Unified SASE* service unites networking and security into a single platform, so organizations can maintain seamless performance while enforcing consistent protection across hybrid workforces, multi-cloud environments and emerging AI workloads.
* What is SASE?
In the past, companies kept all their important data and apps in one place, like a big office building. Everyone had to connect to that building to get work done, which could be slow and not very flexible—especially if people worked from home or different offices.
Now, with more people working remotely and using cloud apps (like Google Drive or Zoom), companies need a smarter way to protect their data and let people connect quickly and safely from anywhere.
Instead of having separate tools for connecting to the internet and for security, SASE (Secure Access Service Edge), puts them together in one cloud service. Whether you’re at home, in a coffee shop, or in the office, SASE makes sure you can safely access the company’s apps and data.
Can you recall a specific incident or personal story that illustrates the severity of this issue?
A customer on our network experienced a ransomware breach despite a comprehensive security stack. When we reviewed their network logs, we saw that without integrated security at the network layer, isolating the attack took far longer than necessary. That incident directly inspired our single-pass Unified SASE architecture.
Why is this issue especially relevant today? Can you share any recent statistics, research findings, or any data that prove its urgency?
Modern networks extend from corporate campuses to remote homes, data centers, clouds and edge sites. Legacy perimeter-based tools struggle to secure and optimize these distributed environments, and generative AI adds new performance demands and attack vectors.
Industry research shows that many IT teams feel overwhelmed by the complexity of managing distributed networks and enforcing security policies across remote users.
What kind of people or organizations are most affected by this issue, and why are they still stuck with it? What’s wrong in how they are trying to solve it?
Enterprises with global footprints—such as retail chains, financial institutions and healthcare providers—are especially impacted. Many continue operating networking and security as separate functions, resulting in policy inconsistencies, operational silos and delayed threat responses. Transitioning to a converged platform is easier than most teams realize.
What should they do instead, and how do you help with that? What are the things you do that competitors can’t or won’t do? What makes them game-changers?
To work smoothly, security and networking need to run on the same settings and handle data in one go. Many providers make you pick either faster connections or stronger protection, but Aryaka’s Unified SASE gives you both. You manage everything from one screen, so there’s less confusion, fewer mistakes and less time spent on setup.
Can you share a milestone or testimonial that shows your solution works? Great if you can show what metrics you move and by how much.
As of April 2025, our annual security bookings increased by 72 percent year‑over‑year. This rapid growth underscores the confidence enterprises place in our Unified SASE to replace complex, siloed stacks and achieve measurable gains in both security posture and network performance.
What’s the BIG vision for the future of your company? What’s in your roadmap, and how will these updates improve your clients’ lives?
We are focused on supporting next-generation AI applications. We launched AI > Perform to optimize AI workloads at every edge point, reducing latency and accelerating model training. AI > Observe provides real‑time, AI-driven insights into traffic patterns and potential threats. Next, AI Security will proactively identify and neutralize vulnerabilities introduced by AI adoption. Together, these innovations will enable organizations to embrace AI safely and at scale.
To wrap up, if there was one key takeaway you wish people could bring home from this interview, what would it be?
Between hybrid work, multi-cloud operations and AI, network environments have become too complex for siloed tools and teams. Unified SASE is the simplest path to secure, accelerate and simplify modern infrastructure.
Stop trading off speed for securityLinkedIn:
Reach out to Aryaka to learn how Unified SASE can streamline your network operations and protect your distributed workforce.
Sources:
AT&T. “Is Corporate America Ready for the Future of Work?” (2023): https://www.business.att.com/learn/research-reports/is-corporate-america-ready-for-the-future-of-work.html
