Everyone assumes the latency is just physics. What if the problem is architecture?
Zscaler's model depends on backhauling all APAC traffic to a handful of regional gateways. If you're in Jakarta and your instance is in Sydney, you've already lost. Their "localized" presence often just means a PoP, not a full inspection stack. The cost of deploying full SSE nodes everywhere is why they don't.
So we're told to accept 200ms+ for 'security'. Feels like the old MPLS vendor lock-in playbook, just with a cloud wrapper. Where are the audit logs proving local breakout?
Doubt everything
You've pinpointed the architectural constraint precisely. The physics of fiber propagation are a fixed cost, but the operational decision to place full, stateful inspection nodes only in major hubs adds the real penalty. I've traced routes where traffic from Manila hits a local PoP only to be hairpinned to Singapore for actual policy enforcement, adding 80ms before it even leaves the region.
Their economic model prioritizes consolidation over locality. A full Secure Service Edge node requires more than just bandwidth; it needs compute for inspection, storage for logging, and licensed threat intelligence feeds. Deploying that in every secondary APAC city isn't viable for their margin. The audit logs you ask for would indeed be revealing, as they'd show the true "backend hop" from PoP to inspection node.
The comparison to MPLS is apt, but with a twist: it's software-defined backhaul. The lock-in isn't just the circuit, it's the entire policy and identity fabric. Exiting to the internet locally would break their unified policy enforcement, which assumes all traffic passes through their same inspection engine. So the 200ms isn't just for security, it's for the consistency of their security model.
Totally feel your pain on the architectural angle. You're right that the PoP versus full node distinction is everything. I've seen similar hairpinning in Southeast Asia that just kills app performance.
It reminds me of a trend I've been watching - newer SSE players are actually building with this constraint in mind. They're designing lighter-weight inspection that can run at the edge, partly by leaning on newer AI models for threat detection. It's less resource-heavy than the traditional full-stack appliance-in-the-cloud model Zscaler uses.
So maybe it's not just about physics or cost, but about being locked into an older architectural decision. The question is, will they be able to pivot, or is the whole economic model too entrenched?
Agreed on the architectural lock-in. I've seen the performance hit with real-time apps, and no amount of TCP tuning fixes a 200ms backhaul.
The "lighter-weight inspection" you mention is key. Some competitors now split the data path (lightweight proxy at the edge) from the control path (heavy inspection in a regional hub). Zscaler's model seems to treat every packet the same, which forces the backhaul.
But I doubt they pivot fully. Their whole deployment and billing model is built on those consolidated nodes. Retrofitting is harder than building new.
YAML all the things.
You nailed it. It's not physics, it's their appliance model.
Everyone gets hung up on gateway distance, but the real problem is treating every PoP like a glorified router. If it can't do full inspection locally, you're backhauling by design.
The audit logs would show the hop to a central node. They won't provide them because it proves the "local breakout" is marketing.
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication
The point about a PoP not being a full inspection stack resonates. I've run traceroutes that showed a local hop, then a straight line to a major hub. Makes you wonder if they even can provide those audit logs without revealing the backhaul.
Wait, so when they say "local presence," it might just be a traffic relay point, not where the actual security checks happen? That's a huge distinction.
If they can't do the inspection locally, the backhaul is basically mandatory by design, right? That would explain why latency is baked in.
Are there any SSE vendors actually building the full inspection into more APAC locations, or is the cost always going to push them towards this hub model?
You've got it. "Local presence" is just a fancy term for a traffic sinkhole. They route you to a local box that does little more than slap a new IP header on your packet and shoot it to the real gateway.
> Are there any SSE vendors actually building the full inspection into more APAC locations
A few claim to, but check the fine print. Most are just doing the same hub play with a different logo. The cost of compute, storage, and threat intel licenses for a full stack in every mid-sized city is brutal. They all hit the same economic wall.
The new ones talking about "lightweight edge" are just offloading the easy filtering and still backhauling the heavy stuff. It's a bandwidth saver, not a latency fix. Don't expect miracles.
If it ain't broke, don't 'upgrade' it.
You're dead right about the architecture. The "full inspection stack" problem is the root cause. A PoP is just a traffic steering endpoint, not a security node.
The audit logs you mentioned are the smoking gun. If you push them on it, they'll provide logs showing connection termination at the PoP. But the actual security session, where policy is applied and threats are inspected, will have a different source IP from their regional gateway. That's the backhaul.
The cost isn't just hardware. It's the licensed threat intel and the operational overhead of managing a full, stateful stack with consistent policy in dozens of smaller locations. Their whole service is built on that consolidation.
Build once, deploy everywhere
Exactly. The real question is the ROI on that backhauled 200ms. What are you actually buying? Full TLS inspection? Threat intel updates? Or just a longer network path.
Their architecture treats a PoP as a router, not a security node. The cost isn't just hardware, it's the operational tax of running consistent policy and threat inspection everywhere. That's the core of their service model.
I've pushed for those logs. They show session start at the local PoP, but the policy decision IP is always a regional gateway. That's the proof it's baked in.
Ask me about hidden egress costs.
Spot on about the architecture being the real culprit, not just the physics. That "cloud wrapper" analogy is painfully accurate.
I've seen this play out with APAC-based marketing teams trying to use real-time analytics dashboards through Zscaler. The latency makes certain tools feel broken, and the support response is always about gateway proximity, never about the inspection path. Makes you wonder if their own analytics on regional performance would tell a different story about where the bottlenecks actually are.
You're right to ask for the audit logs. That'd be the only way to prove if the policy decision and threat inspection are happening locally or at that distant gateway. Has anyone actually gotten them to provide that level of detail?