Netskope Alternative Case Study: How a SaaS CISO Cut the Tunnel HA and SD-WAN Overhead

A mid-market SaaS technology company's CISO replaced Netskope because the ops overhead of tunnel HA and SD-WAN gaps was eating a lean security team's time. dope.security's on-device architecture removed the tunnels and the HA design with them.

The TL;DR

• Industry: Technology (SaaS)
• Replaced: Netskope SWG
• Deployed: dope.SWG, CASB Neural, Cloud Application Control

Where things stood

The org had grown faster than the security team. One Principal Engineer carried the SWG, the CASB, parts of the DLP, and most of the on-call rotation. The Netskope stack worked, but it had a habit of demanding attention at the wrong moments.

IPsec tunnels capped throughput, which meant adding more tunnels, which meant more HA pairs, which meant another runbook. The "no native SD-WAN" gap pushed the team into custom networking work that wasn't really their job. Every quarter brought a tunnel-related Jira swarm that nobody wanted to own.

When ops overhead became the conversation

The CISO did the math on engineering hours and realized the SWG was eating a senior person's week, every month, just to keep the tunnels honest. None of that work moved security forward. It was infrastructure plumbing dressed up as security.

A post in r/networking from another team captured the same operational pain: multiple tunnels needing constant admin work, painful HA setups without native SD-WAN, proxy inspection limited to four protocols, restrictive file handling. The CISO sent the link to the head of networking with one line: "This is us."

Looking for an alternative

The non-negotiables: no tunnels, no HA design, no SD-WAN dependency. Stable console. Policy push that doesn't take 30 minutes to propagate. AI governance for ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Copilot built in, because the engineering org was using all four and the security team didn't want to write a custom proxy rule for each. The Netskope-adjacent options (Zscaler, Cisco Umbrella SIG, Forcepoint ONE) all ran the same cloud-proxy architecture and inherited the same ops shape. On-device SWG was the only category that changed the question.

Why on-device flipped the ops math

dope.security removed the data plane from the network team's plate. The dope.endpoint agent enforces locally. There's no tunnel to size, no HA pair to maintain, and no SD-WAN to integrate. Per-endpoint enforcement means a single device with a problem stays a single-device problem; the rest of the fleet keeps working.

The AI governance side closed at the same time. Cloud Application Control distinguishes personal vs enterprise tenants for ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini (via Google Workspace), and Copilot (via Microsoft 365). One workflow, no custom rules.

"I bought back a senior engineer's week. The tunnel-maintenance treadmill stopped. We picked up AI tenant control as a side benefit, and our console fragmentation went from four panes to one. The next renewal conversation is going to be very short."
By a CISO, mid-market SaaS technology organization.

The non-technical reason it stuck

dope.security's 24/7 white glove global support team showed up when the team needed it. Phased rollout questions landed on a human, not a queue. For a lean security org that's already stretched, that's not a soft benefit. It's why the rollout finished on time.

What changed

• Tunnel ops dropped to zero. No IPsec, no GRE, no HA pair maintenance.
• SD-WAN gap closed. Not required for the SWG.
• Console fragmentation gone. SWG, CAC, DLP, and CASB Neural in one UI.
• AI governance handled. CAC covers ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Copilot out of the box.
• Renewal math improved. One SKU at $60 per device per year replaced a multi-module Netskope bundle.

FAQ

Does dope.security require SD-WAN?

No. dope.SWG enforces on the endpoint and doesn't depend on tunnels or SD-WAN. The network team isn't on the critical path for SWG operations.

How does HA work without tunnels?

Per-endpoint enforcement. Each device runs the agent and the policy locally. There's no shared tunnel or HA pair to fail.

Can dope.security govern ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Copilot?

Yes. Cloud Application Control distinguishes personal vs enterprise tenants for all four AI tools, in the same console as the SWG, DLP, and CASB Neural.

About dope.security

dope.security, the Distributed On-device Proxy Endpoint, is the preferred security vendor for security leaders across SMBs, midsize enterprises, Fortune 500 companies, and the world's top VC and PE firms. Deployed in 83 countries, dope.security protects web, data, and AI traffic globally through its patented fly-direct architecture.