THE IT MANAGER’S GUIDE TO RECLAIMING YOUR FREE TIME

© 2025 Check Point Software Technologies Ltd. All rights reserved.

2THE IT MANAGER’S GUIDE TO RECLAIMING YOUR FREE TIME

Every IT Manager faces the same challenge: endless reactive tasks that consume time better spent on strategic initiatives. Even the most diligent administrator gets hit with a pile of issues, and as always, they tend to cluster around the worst times of day like early morning or late afternoon.

To escape this cycle, many IT managers try to simplify their architecture. But that can be difficult when you’re defending a traditional network perimeter. Your on-prem firewalls and DMZ are essential for protecting your core data center, but the challenge grows as your organization adopts hybrid work and cloud applications. Suddenly, the security perimeter you meticulously manage has to stretch to hundreds of home offices and SaaS platforms. This adds new layers of complexity— from inconsistent remote access policies to security gaps for a distributed workforce. True, some responsibilities can’t be pared down, but your network security stack doesn’t have to be one of them.

Imagine replacing your complex web of point solutions with a single, unified platform. One that delivers Zero Trust Network Access, a cloud-native firewall, internet security, and SaaS security. This is the power of Check Point SASE, which is built on a high-performance global private backbone with more than 80 points of presence around the world.

With Check Point SASE you can focus on the strategic tasks that matter and finish the day on time—whether it’s for a workout, a meeting, or just some well-earned relaxation.

Deploy Fast, Free Up Time

Deploying new solutions shouldn’t be hard, but it often is whether we’re talking about a SaaS application or a fleet of new hardware. With Check Point SASE you can deploy a cloud-based network, bring it online, and connect your workforce, fast.

With Check Point SASE, you don’t have to worry about running the latest security patches across all the network servers. The same goes for regular operating system updates, and any other basic server tasks. All of that happens in the background, handled by our engineers who manage our data centers around the world.

Plus, Check Point SASE commits to a 99.9% uptime as part of our service level agreement (SLA) to ensure that the network is always available when you, and your users, need it.

Permissions and Policies

Once the network is up and running, we recommend integrating your users via a single sign-on identity provider (IdP). Our service supports all the major IdP providers, as well as SCIM and SAML 2.0 if you need deeper customization. After your workforce is onboarded to the system, it’s simple to set Zero Trust access policies based on groups that you define, or were previously defined via your IdP, such as developers, marketing, operations, and so on. You can also grant specific individuals resource access.

Deploy a cloud-based network, bring it online, and connect your workforce, fast.

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3THE IT MANAGER’S GUIDE TO RECLAIMING YOUR FREE TIME

Embrace a Zero Trust Foundation

We recommend that companies start their resource permissions from a “deny by default” posture. Then you can distribute access on an as-needed basis.

This approach has two primary benefits:

1. Default deny embraces the basic principle of Zero Trust: never trust, always verify. This means starting from a position of not trusting anyone, and then slowly opening up permissions that are continuously verified with granular authorization checks.

2. The IT manager has more control over who’s allowed to access resources. Setting these policies from the outset means there’s no need to go through the network to plug any potential security holes from overly permissive access settings

Simplify Policy Execution

Implementing policies is a simple matter of selecting the groups or individuals who should have access to each resource, and then that policy is set network wide. You can also set context rules such as only allowing users to access your network from certain countries, or only at certain times of day.

We also recommend implementing Device Posture Check (DPC). This ensures that any device that tries to connect directly to the corporate network meets your security requirements, such as running a specific operating system version or antivirus suite.

Agentless Zero Trust Network Access

For those who don’t need an agent such as third-party contractors or users on unmanaged devices, we support an agentless access solution. Instead of connecting to the entire network, people on unmanaged devices connect only to the applications they need through a web portal.

For organizations who need deeper control over agentless access, our Enterprise Browser provides greater security controls over unmanaged devices. The Enterprise Browser starts with a sandboxed approach separating corporate data from personal data on the device. At the end of the browsing session, corporate data is wiped from the device, starting fresh each time. In addition, the Enterprise Browser adds DLP monitoring and device posture checks to ensure compliance with company policies. This is an ideal solution for organizations that need to be stricter about sharing sensitive data with contractors or BYOD employees.

Whichever route you go, IT Managers will be able to spend less time worrying about defending a DMZ or monitoring unmanaged user activity for unusual behavior.

Secure Internet

The web plays a central role in daily business activity, so implementing secure Internet Access to safeguard employees is essential.

Secure Internet Access minimizes web-based threats by automatically scanning for threats.

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4THE IT MANAGER’S GUIDE TO RECLAIMING YOUR FREE TIME

This can include simpler operations like scanning for malware, but also advanced tasks like threat emulation to observe the behavior of suspicious files in a secure sandbox, or anti-bot protections to block malicious command-and- control servers. IT managers can also regulate browsing by blocking undesirable websites based on categories, custom lists, domains, and individual URLs.

This automated defense acts as your 24/7 web security analyst, freeing your team from chasing down every alert and manually updating blocklists.

SaaS Security

Check Point SASE eases the manual work of SaaS Security with AI-driven anomaly detection, and pre-configured policies that identify and block potential data theft, account takeovers, and risky behaviors, saving you countless hours of manual configuration checks and audit preparation.

You get fast, comprehensive visibility into your SaaS environment, including shadow integrations, plugins, and APIs, with detailed reports that show who’s connected, what they’re accessing, and where misconfigurations or permission issues might leave you exposed.

Check Point SASE also supports application control, allowing you to control which SaaS apps are allowed based on a curated list of 10,000+ SaaS apps—so you can manage access at scale, instantly.

With automatic gap detection, compliance alerts, and one-click remediation, Check Point SASE works quietly in the background. You get fast deployment, simplified management, and ongoing protection—freeing you to spend less time on reactive tasks and more time driving strategy.

Logging Off on Time

Once everything is set, all of these features are managed from Check Point’s Infinity Portal. From one platform you can monitor network health, set new policies, suspend old ones, create new groups, and more. It’s an incredibly powerful tool that focuses on making the IT Manager's job as streamlined as possible. This means you spend less time manually investigating alerts and more time on strategic projects.

Ready to see how much time you can reclaim?

Schedule a 15-minute demo with one of our specialists to see the Infinity Portal in action and calculate your potential time savings. Book a Demo

https://www.perimeter81.com/demo-cp?utm_source=p81&utm_content=WPR&utm_medium=PDF&utm_campaign=harmony_sase_healthcare http://sase.checkpoint.com/demo

© 2025 Check Point Software Technologies Ltd. All rights reserved.

5THE IT MANAGER’S GUIDE TO RECLAIMING YOUR FREE TIMEAppendix:

The IT Manager’s Blueprint for SASE Success

Now that you understand what SASE can do for you, let’s acknowledge the reality of IT decision-making in most organizations. For the most part, IT Managers will have a difficult time initiating a company-wide policy change. Nevertheless, with a small pilot program and critical proof-of-concept evaluations, an IT Manager can go from someone who executes company initiatives, to someone who presents a game- changing strategy to the C-suite.

The 30-Day SASE Pilot

With a pilot program you can demonstrate immediate, measurable results with minimal risk and develop concrete metrics to support a business case. In addition, a pilot program allows for proactive feedback from a small group of interested parties, and technical validation for our claims.

Finding Your Pilot Group

For a pilot program to work, you need a team or small department that can help provide clear, measurable results. When looking for potential candidates in your organization look for issues such as:

• Remote workers with connectivity challenges • Field teams who need regular access to multiple cloud and/or SaaS applications • A department with a recent security incident • Users with a high number of tickets needing support for access issues • Small branch offices planning a hardware refresh in the next 8-12 months

Implementation Plan

Week 1

• Deploy Check Point SASE for the pilot group • Configure basic Zero Trust Access policies including device posture checks • Establish monitoring and logging measurements that are relevant to your use case

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6THE IT MANAGER’S GUIDE TO RECLAIMING YOUR FREE TIME

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• Establish Baseline KPI 1: Ticket Volume. Document the number of access- and network-related help desk tickets from the pilot group for the 30 days prior to implementation.

• Document the time to resolution for SASE tickets and compare the scale to tickets from the previous step • Record recent security alerts and incidents and score them for risk to compare against SASE

Weeks 2 and 3

• Survey users on satisfaction each week • Continue to monitor help desk tickets for pilot group • Fine-tune policies based on usage patterns • Establish Baseline KPI 2: Admin Hours. Document the average weekly hours spent on firewall rule

changes, VPN troubleshooting, and other relevant network security tasks. • Track metrics such as security alerts, blocked threats, time to provision new user access (if the pilot

expands)

Week 4

• Compile comprehensive pilot results • Document lessons learned and optimization opportunities • Prepare a presentation with concrete data from previous steps

The pilot-first approach transforms SASE evaluation from theoretical to practical. By starting small and proving value with hard data, you build the credibility needed to drive organizational change. You’re no longer just saving your own time; you’re presenting a data-backed strategy to make the entire enterprise more secure, agile, and productive.

Book a Demo

http://sase.checkpoint.com/demo