Gartner defines SaaS management platforms (SMP) as software tools that aim to help organizations discover, manage, optimize and automate the SaaS application life cycle from one centralized console. Core SMP capabilities include discovery, cost optimization, employee self-service via an application store, insights to increase adoption and automation of onboarding/offboarding activities. As SaaS adoption accelerates, IT leaders struggle to discover and support SaaS-hosted applications in accordance with company, market or geographic policies and regulations. Increased SaaS costs — combined with limited visibility into the entire SaaS portfolio (including unapproved SaaS) and high levels of overdeployed and underconsumed licenses — result in significant financial, operational and cybersecurity risk.
Gartner defines security service edge (SSE) as a solution that secures access to the web, cloud services and private applications regardless of the location of the user or the device they are using or where that application is hosted. SSE protects users from malicious and inappropriate content on the web and provides enhanced security and visibility for the SaaS and private applications accessed by end users. Security service edge provides a primarily cloud-delivered solution to control access from end users and edge devices to applications (private or delivered via SaaS) as well as websites (and to a lesser extent general internet traffic). It enables a hybrid workforce more efficiently than traditional on-premises solutions. Capabilities integrated across multiple traffic types and destinations allow a more seamless experience for both users and admins while maintaining a consistent security stance.