Fortinet Firewalls, Switching and Wireless

Sizing and licensing a FortiGate

FortiGate hardware runs FortiOS out of the box, which covers routing, firewalling and VPN. IPS, web filtering, antivirus, application control and sandboxing arrive through FortiGuard subscriptions, sold as bundles over one, three or five year terms. FortiCare, which covers support and hardware replacement, is a separate entitlement again. The appliance is one line on the quote, and the bundle is what determines which inspection features are available to you.

Sizing follows from the same decision. A datasheet lists more than one throughput figure, and with IPS and SSL inspection enabled the real number is a fraction of the headline firewall throughput, so size against the inspection figure rather than the largest one on the page. And when a term lapses the appliance keeps forwarding traffic while security services stop updating, which makes the renewal date a budget line rather than a surprise.

We size against inspection throughput rather than the headline number, and because it is easy to be quoted a larger bundle than a deployment needs, we will tell you when the smaller one covers what you actually run.