Hey everyone! I just wrapped up my first ZPA proof-of-concept and wanted to share a piece of advice that saved me a ton of headaches.
When you're setting up your trial, it's super tempting to jump right in and try to secure that big, mission-critical application everyone uses. Resist that urge! 🚫 Instead, pick one simple, non-critical app for your first connector. I started with our internal company wiki. It's low-risk, has simple access patterns, and doesn't have a ton of complex dependencies.
Why does this work so well? You get to learn the core concepts—like provisioning connectors, setting up app segments, and testing policies—without the pressure of an entire department breathing down your neck if something hiccups. You'll make your first configuration mistakes here (and you will make them!), but it won't cause a major outage. It also gives you clean, simple logs to analyze when you're verifying that traffic is flowing through the private access channel correctly.
Once I had the wiki working perfectly, I had the confidence and the template to roll out access to our CRM and project management tools. That initial win made the whole process so much smoother.
Anyone else start their ZPA journey with a "test" app? What did you use?
Happy building