As an SD-WAN vendor, Fortinet has made great strides carving out a niche among the top vendors in the space, but it's also staying true to its firewall roots.
Fortinet announced its next generation firewall, which is called the FortiGate 60F Next-Generation Firewall, which it claims is the fastest, most powerful and secure desktop SD-WAN appliance.
Fortinet is backing up those claims with a its new purpose-built system-on-a-chip 4 (SOC 4) security processer to achieve what is says is the highest compute ratings in the industry to support customers' WAN edge transformations.
“Fortinet has aggressively embraced the SD-WAN story by integrating SD-WAN functionality with its security applications," said Scott Raynovich, founder and chief analyst of Futuriom. "This is now clearly paying off as the market continues to move toward a software-defined edge model for optimizing network connectivity and combining that with cybersecurity tools.”
FortiGate 60F uses security-driven networking principals that are powered by its SOC4 security processor. It delivers deep inspection of SSL/TLS encrypted traffic (including the industry’s first support for TLS 1.3) at 750 Mbps, 11 times greater than the industry average.
The FortiGate 60F also includes threat protection with IPS, application control, and anti-malware at 700 Mbps, which Fortinet said was four times greater than the industry average, to help customers protect their network without impacting performance.
“We hear from an increasing number of customers who are struggling to achieve the required level of user experience, visibility, and security at their WAN edge to support key business applications," said John Maddison, executive vice president of products and chief marketing officer at Fortinet, in a statement. "With today’s introduction of the FortiGate 60F powered by our latest security processor, Fortinet continues its commitment to security innovation, setting industry records for performance to empower network leaders to truly transform their WAN edge."
The company's FortiGate 60F combines SD-WAN, advanced routing, and advanced security capabilities on to a single appliance, which enables customers to quickly deploy secure services while also reducing complexity by consolidating point products into a single offering. All told, Fortinet said the new firewall enables high performance and a better user experience "at an optimal total cost of ownership."
While Fortinet initially made its mark as a security vendor that worked with pure-play SD-WAN companies, last year it started offering its own flavor of SD-WAN backed by its security portfolio. That decision has made Fortinet both a friend of the SD-WAN companies that it partners with, and an enemy as it works to win its own SD-WAN business.
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In IHS Markit's second quarter SD-WAN report, Fortinet took over the fourth spot in SD-WAN revenue by displacing Silver Peak while VMware/VeloCloud, Cisco/Viptela and Aryaka held down the top three spots.
"Our rapidly growing market share underscores the need for Fortinet’s Security-Driven Networking approach to SD-WAN, which consolidates SD-WAN, advanced routing, and advanced security capabilities into a single appliance," Maddison said.
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Fortinet has announced customer wins this year with Comcast Business, Windstream Enterprise and Telenor Sweden, among others.