Appgate

The defining architectural choice in Appgate SDP is direct routing: traffic goes from user to resource without detouring through a vendor cloud proxy. Most ZTNA solutions on the market are cloud-routed — they insert the vendor's cloud as a mandatory transit point, limiting protocol support to HTTPS, adding latency from the proxy hop, and creating unpredictable pricing based on cloud traffic volumes. Appgate SDP's direct-routed model supports all protocols, enables IoT/OT and legacy application security, allows air-gapped isolated deployments, and keeps the organization in full control of how data traverses its network. The Cloud Security Alliance explicitly identifies direct-routed ZTNA as more stringently aligned to Zero Trust principles.

Many ZTNA solutions secure one thing well — remote access to web applications — and require separate tools for on-premises, cloud-native, legacy app, IoT, OT, and M2M scenarios. Appgate SDP's unified policy model applies the same Zero Trust principles to every connection type: remote workers, in-office users, third-party contractors, DevOps engineers, IoT sensors, OT controllers, and resource-to-resource connections. This consolidation eliminates the 'ZTNA plus other tools' architecture that creates policy gaps at the intersections of security tools.

VPN security depends on authentication before granting access — but the VPN concentrator itself remains visible and scannable on the public internet, creating an attack surface before any authentication occurs. Appgate SDP's Single Packet Authorization makes this problem structurally impossible: all infrastructure is invisible to unauthorized users before any connection attempt. Scanning tools, automated attack frameworks, and human attackers receive no response from Appgate-protected resources. There is nothing to probe, nothing to attack, and no indication that a resource even exists.

A common critique of Zero Trust and microsegmentation is that least-privilege access creates friction for users who need to access distributed resources. Traditional VPNs allow full network access after one login — convenient but insecure. Appgate SDP's patented multi-tunneling technology creates simultaneous, concurrent 'segments of one' to multiple specific resources without switching connections. A developer can access a cloud development environment, an on-premises database, and a SaaS tool simultaneously — each via a separate microsegmented tunnel, each with just-in-time privilege — with no more friction than a single VPN connection.

Appgate SDP's government credentials are substantive, not marketing: DoD Authorization to Operate (not just a compliance checkbox — a formal security assessment), CNAP alignment (DoD's Comply-to-Connect Network Access Policy), DoD Zero Trust Reference Architecture alignment, and active collaboration on NIST SP800-207 (the federal government's definitive Zero Trust framework document). For enterprises in financial services, healthcare, defense industrial base, and regulated industries that need to demonstrate alignment with federal security standards, Appgate SDP's government validation carries evidentiary weight that analyst reports alone cannot provide.

Appgate's ROI claims are not vendor-produced estimates — they are from a Nemertes 2023 independent research study covering actual customer deployments. 83% of customers saw significant reduction in security incidents. 87% average decrease in time to modify access privileges — a critical operational metric for organizations managing dynamic workforces and contractor relationships. 32% reduction in hands-on staff time for access management. A global systems integrator reported 67% decrease in connectivity costs from retiring expensive private network infrastructure. These are structural cost and risk reductions, not productivity improvements that are difficult to measure.