The global network perimeter has changed beyond recognition. What once centered on office-based traffic optimization has been redefined by cloud-first workloads and a distributed workforce. As enterprises moved mission-critical applications to the cloud, attackers followed suit, thereby targeting the gaps left behind by legacy models. Analysts forecast that the Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) market will grow over 500% by 2025, as organizations consolidate networking and security into unified platforms.
For Dhaval Powar, an Engineering Manager at VMware, this evolution demanded more than incremental updates as it required leading the re-architecture of how networks and security would converge in the cloud. Drawing on more than a decade of experience in building and scaling distributed systems, he shaped approaches that placed equal weight on trust, scale and performance.
“Building modern security frameworks is more than merely adding new features; it concerns re-architecting how trust, scale and performance coexist in the cloud,” he explains.
Why SD-WAN Alone Could Not Keep Up
Across industries, SD-WAN adoption initially soared because of its ability to reduce connectivity costs and simplify branch networking. But the demands of modern enterprises soon outpaced what it could deliver. With hybrid work becoming the norm and global cyberattacks accelerating, organizations found that optimizing traffic was no longer enough. Enterprises began demanding integrated security as part of the network itself, delivered consistently across users, devices and applications no matter where they operate.
Industry analysts point out that this shift has driven the rise of integrated architectures that merge connectivity with services such as Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) and Cloud Web Security (CWS). This broader transition is reshaping priorities across Fortune 500 firms and mid-market enterprises alike, with security budgets being realigned to favor converged solutions. According to Forrester, 83% of large enterprises now have senior-leadership commitment to Zero Trust adoption.
Dhaval saw this shift reflected directly in customer conversations. Leaders were, beyond inquiring for mere faster networks, asking for integrated trust. Recognizing this, he emphasized the importance of unified strategies over isolated point solutions. “Enterprises are no longer satisfied with isolated tools; the real takeaway for leaders is to focus on unified strategies that secure access consistently across every user and application environment,” Dhaval emphasizes.
Engineering a Cloud-Native Platform
The broader industry is steadily adopting cloud-native paradigms to deliver scale, resilience and adaptability. In this space, technology providers must prove their ability to deploy services across multiple global regions while ensuring consistent user experience. Enterprises now expect responsiveness to threats, low-latency connectivity and seamless integration between network and security operations, all of which require a fundamental shift in how platforms are engineered. Reports from major research firms highlight how cloud-native security adoption is no longer optional and hence expected.
Against this backdrop, Dhaval led a globally distributed team of engineers spanning the United States, the United Kingdom, Ukraine and India. Together, they designed a microservices-driven architecture to serve as the backbone of the platform. Infrastructure-as-Code automated deployments across global points of presence, while CI/CD pipelines enabled faster releases without sacrificing reliability. A phased rollout strategy ensured that critical regions were prioritized first, then expanded to cover a wider global footprint.
Scaling such a system was far from simple. Consistency across continents required balancing strict latency targets with uncompromising security guarantees. Reflecting on the challenge, Dhaval notes, “Scaling cloud security globally is, contrary to pushing one product out faster, about making sure the architecture holds under pressure.” By aligning technical execution with finance, pricing and product teams, he ensured that the platform was technically robust and, better yet, commercially viable.
The Strategic Impact of an Integrated Implementation
Across the technology landscape, converged networking and security has been identified as one of the fastest-growing categories in enterprise IT. Organizations facing the complexity of multi-cloud adoption and remote-first operations are looking to simplify their architectures while ensuring end-to-end protection. Independent research forecasts that adoption will continue to climb as enterprises consolidate fragmented security and networking investments into integrated platforms that reduce cost and operational overhead. According to Fortune Business Insights’ Cybersecurity Market Report, the global cybersecurity market was valued at $193.73 billion in 2024 and is projected to reach $562.77 billion by 2032, growing at a CAGR of 14.4%.
This industry-wide shift meant moving away from hardware-heavy, siloed systems toward unified models capable of supporting modern workloads. For Dhaval, the challenge was to balance the practical realities of engineering with the strategic need for market alignment. By helping to define the minimum viable product, working directly with customers to adapt features to real-world use cases and guiding go-to-market sequencing, he played a central role in ensuring the platform was both technically and commercially viable. “In every architecture decision, there is a trade-off between innovation and reliability, and the leaders who succeed are the ones who make those trade-offs transparent and sustainable,” Dhaval observes. His contributions reflected the broader truth facing all technology leaders: engineering decisions are inseparable from business viability when the goal is to re-architect an entire category.
Engineering Trust for the Next Decade
As enterprises follow through with embracing cloud-native operations, converged approaches are emerging as the model that binds networking and security into a single architectural foundation. With regulators raising expectations and cyber threats escalating in both frequency and scale, the pressure to adopt integrated models has never been higher. Gartner forecasts that by 2027, 65% of new SD-WAN purchases will be part of a single-vendor SASE offering, up from 20% in 2024.
Dhaval believes that this shift is less about hype and more about sustainability. “The real test of architecture is whether it earns trust, of customers, of partners and of the teams who run on it every day,” he reflects. For enterprises navigating the decade ahead, the lesson is clear: trust and scale are no longer separate goals, and hence they must be engineered together.
