Edgewise Networks Products, Competitors and Risks

Product Overview

Edgewise Networks built zero trust microsegmentation software marketed as Zero Trust Auto-Segmentation that protected application-to-application communications across public clouds, data centers, and containers. The platform verified the identity of communicating software before allowing connections and used machine learning to generate protection policies automatically.

Zscaler positioned the approach as reducing east-west attack surface and the risk of application compromise and data breach. After the May 2020 acquisition the technology was absorbed into Zscaler workload security offerings.

Competitive Advantages

Edgewise used software identity verification rather than IP addresses or firewall rules, so only trusted applications communicated over approved paths. The company stated this eliminated roughly 98 percent of the typical network attack surface and removed the manual policy engineering that made legacy microsegmentation projects fail.

Its machine learning system analyzed communication patterns and generated optimal policies automatically, citing management of 13,000 connections with about 180 policies, deployed without network architecture changes. Recognition included Gartner Cool Vendor in 2018 and SINET 16 Innovator.

Competitive Disadvantages

Edgewise required an endpoint component installed on every virtual machine and physical server under management, adding deployment footprint relative to network-based segmentation controls. During 2017 the product was in private beta with general availability only slated for late in the year, indicating an early-stage offering.

As a sub-scale startup it faced far larger microsegmentation incumbents including VMware, Cisco, Palo Alto Networks, and Illumio with existing data center footprints. The company raised only about $18 million total and reached roughly 27 to 35 employees before acquisition, limiting enterprise reach.