Historic security and networking approaches don’t support today’s distributed enterprises, which demand competent, secure connectivity from virtually anywhere. A new architecture, the Zero Trust edge (ZTE), combines network functions and security capabilities, delivered from and managed in the cloud. Organizations are using ZTE to protect remote workers, retail outlets, and branch offices in the short term. In five years, they will use ZTE to securely connect data centers, factories, and hospitals. In its final form, ZTE will fully converge networking and security, combining Zero Trust security principles and software-defined networking into a cohesive set of cloud-delivered and managed services.