One of the differentiators for the Palo Alto Networks secure access service edge (SASE) solution is path analysis. This feature, often related to Autonomous Digital Experience Management (ADEM), allows the analysis of the network path to provide enhanced visibility and performance insights, which may not be present in competitor solutions.

A secure web gateway (SWG) inspects web-based protocols and traffic to ensure secure connections between users and applications. An SWG acts as a gatekeeper, enforcing security policies and filtering unwanted programs/malware from web traffic. This makes it the appropriate choice for a component that inspects web-based protocols.

The benefit of the Palo Alto Networks secure access service edge (SASE) solution's ability to provide insight into SD-WAN and network security metrics while highlighting critical issues across all managed tenants is that it helps managed service providers (MSPs) accelerate troubleshooting and meet service level agreements (SLAs) for all their customers. This is because having detailed insights and highlighted critical issues aids in quicker identification and resolution of problems, thus ensuring that service levels are maintained as promised to their clients.

Zero Trust is an approach that ensures complete session protection by removing trust assumptions and continuously verifying each access request, regardless of whether the user is on or off the corporate network. This fits well with SASE solutions, which aim to provide secure access by integrating wide area networking and security functionalities, ensuring robust protection anytime and anywhere.

In the Five-Step Methodology of Zero Trust, application access and user access are defined in Step 4: Create the Zero Trust Policy. This step involves developing and enforcing policies that specify who can access what resources under specific conditions, ensuring access is granted based on the principle of least privilege.