The Cisco SD-WAN Foundations Lab is a capability of the Advanced Technology Center (ATC) designed to provide an environment to gain hands-on experience with the fundamental features of Cisco's SD-WAN solution. The environment that supports the lab is completely virtual, removing any hardware dependencies associated with physical infrastructure.

First coined in 2019, Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) is the convergence of network and security frameworks. SASE aims to reduce the operational complexity that comes with a cloud-first delivery model. Application assurance and service optimization are achieved via global Point-of-Presence (POPs) and peering with carriers providing high-performance backbones. The combination of all these factors gives the user a consistent and secure experience no matter where they are located.

Zscaler is responsible for securing more than 400 of the Forbes Global 2000 companies. They provide security as a service delivered through a purpose-built, globally distributed platform. The focus of this lab is zero trust access utilizing a solution known as Zscaler Private Access (ZPA). ZPA is a cloud service that provides seamless, zero trust access to private applications running on public cloud or within the data center. With ZPA, applications don't need to be exposed to the internet, making them completely invisible to unauthorized users. This service enables the applications to connect to users via inside-out connectivity versus extending the network to them. It disrupts legacy approaches to remote access such as traditional VPN, establishing per-service dynamic encryption and trust evaluation.

Established in 2007, Trusted Internet Connections (TIC) was developed to secure the Federal Government's connections to the Internet. The first iteration of TIC, coined 1.0, focused on reducing external network connections to improve security posture. TIC 2.0 refined the original design by pushing for standardization across federal agencies. In its 3rd revision, TIC 3.0 introduces flexibility, security and visibility to accommodate cloud, mobile and encrypted applications, services and environments.