Our clients use the solution to ensure their environment is secured on all the layers. The application layer all the way to the networking. That's one of the main reasons they use the product in their environment.
Fortinet FortiGate Next-Generation Firewall
Fortinet Inc.External reviews
External reviews are not included in the AWS star rating for the product.
A user-friendly and easy-to-install product that has a seamless performance
What is our primary use case?
What is most valuable?
It's a seamless product, and it's not buggy. The updates we receive from FortiGate are one of the most important features. The product is user-friendly and not complex.
What needs improvement?
The solution must improve the support provided for customers around the globe, considering the time differences in different places. The product could add some functionalities and features provided by its competitors to stay ahead in the market.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using the solution for two years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The product is stable. We haven't had issues so far. I rate the stability a nine out of ten.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The solution is scalable in most cases. It all depends on the customer's requirements. We haven't yet come across a situation whereby scaling is not possible. Our clients are small, medium, and enterprise businesses. Currently, one of our customers is not able to reach the specific level of scalability that they require so far. I rate the scalability an eight out of ten.
How are customer service and support?
The support is great. However, support needs to improve constantly. Even though they are good, they should try to stay ahead of the competitors.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
How was the initial setup?
The solution is easy to install. The ease of setup depends upon the customer’s requirements. I rate the ease of setup a ten out of ten.
What about the implementation team?
The time to deploy the product depends on the clients’ requirements because we have to work hand in hand with the service provider. If we have to terminate a link on the firewall and everything from the networking perspective is all in place, it might just take a couple of minutes to deploy.
We need just need one to three engineers to deploy the solution. It depends on the magnitude of the client. The solution requires maintenance. More than three people are needed to maintain the product.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The product is a little bit expensive. The certifications cost $400. Other vendors provide it for an average of $200 to $300. The product has an annual licensing fee. Additional costs depend on the user's requirements.
What other advice do I have?
People looking to use the product must ensure they have enough engineers who know how to work with it. Overall, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Offers superior control and visibility, is affordable, and scalable
What is our primary use case?
In our current data center, we use eight Fortinet firewalls. These firewalls serve multiple tiers of the network, including internet users, server farms, and DMZ ports. This gives us multiple approaches to our system and network. As a result, we are able to receive all reports before the analyzer.
In 2011, we were using a Cisco ASA 5540 fixed firewall. We moved to Fortinet because their UTM appliance was a next-generation firewall that offered more than one solution in a single box. This meant that we could handle the network, server, and client parts of our infrastructure with a single device. We also chose Fortinet because of the ease of its GUI and its ease of implementation in multiple locations. Currently, I have three data centers. We are using a consolidated console with a broader view of the network traffic. This is why we moved to Fortinet. We had previously used Juniper and Cisco, but we found that Fortinet offered a better solution for our needs.
We deployed the solution on-premises because, while the private sector in Kuwait has begun to move to the cloud, government entities are not permitted to do so.
How has it helped my organization?
I started with the firewall module, and we were using multiple boxes for multiple functions. I was using a Juniper SSL VPN. They came to us with a single-box solution that included SSL VPN, so we moved to that. Then they came up with client endpoint security, and we moved to that as well. They also introduced web filtering in Fortinet, so we moved to that as well. All of the technology that we were using previously on separate consoles is now consolidated into a single console. I can see the beauty of this product in that it has a single console that manages all of the facilities on one web page.
What is most valuable?
The firewall is top-notch. We are using SSL VPN.
What needs improvement?
When we first started, Fortinet was using a single appliance with a firewall module in the region. They later came up with many different solutions. I have also used FortiDB, but it has been discontinued. We have since removed it. We are looking forward to Fortinet considering a sandboxing solution. This would allow us to secure our database at that layer. I see the database area as being weaker. I would suggest that Fortinet add sandboxing to their solution.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Fortinet FortiGate for 12 years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Fortinet FortiGate is stable which is why we have stuck with it for almost 12 years.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The scalability is good. In 2016, we scaled our system to ensure that we would have enough capacity for the next five to seven years. We are currently only utilizing 25 percent of the hardware processing.
We have around 900 users on our networks per second with a total active directory of 7,000.
How are customer service and support?
The technical support in our region is excellent. There are three levels of support. I remember one time when my problem was not resolved by level one or level two, so it was escalated to level three which was awesome. The level three technician was able to understand the issue quickly by reviewing the chain of email logs and the available information.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We previously used Juniper and Cisco firewalls before switching to Fortinet FortiGate. We were drawn to Fortinet because of its superior control and visibility, as well as its high availability, throughput, and durability. Fortinet's FortiGate firewalls are ASIC-based, which makes them more reliable and efficient than other solutions. As a result, we were able to handle more traffic with Fortinet than with any other vendor.
How was the initial setup?
The initial deployment was complex. We started with a low-level design, discussing with the vendor that we had a certain number of firewalls and concurrent sessions available on the network, and that we had remote sites. We began by implementing the boxes in the data center, then the main data center headquarters, and then the campus network, which has its own data center with a firewall module. We later installed it in one of our accessory branches in their data center. The installation was done in phases.
When the high-level design was in place, we began migrating the configuration. We used a migration tool from Cisco and Juniper, which was very smooth because it was intelligent enough to take all the network IDs, policies, and source destinations, forward based. This meant that we had fewer challenges when we started the migration.
However, we did encounter some challenges during the migration. These were not due to Fortinet, but rather to the configuration that had been migrated from the other vendor. We resolved these challenges by manually checking each policy one by one, and the issue was rectified within a couple of days.
A total of four people were involved in the deployment. Two people from our organization, one from the vendor, and one from the partner. We have to go through our partner to access the vendor.
What about the implementation team?
The implementation was completed by the vendor.
What was our ROI?
Fortinet FortiGate's features and price have provided a return on investment for our organization.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The pricing is a bit more expensive than the others but Fortinet is the best in the region. They have a good hold on the market because they are everywhere.
We pay for support and licensing fees.
I give the pricing a nine out of ten.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We evaluated Palo Alto Networks, but they did not have a presence in our region, so we did not move forward with them. We also evaluated Check Point, but it is not a government-approved solution in our region.
What other advice do I have?
I give Fortinet FortiGate a nine out of ten.
Fortinet FortiGate has good regional support. One of the best things about this solution is that Fortinet doesn't disappear after the sale. They keep engaging us with new technologies. For example, they recently engaged us with a SIEM and SOAR solution that allows me to have a single console for all of my security needs. I have a plan to move to this solution and consolidate all of my firewalls into a single FortiManager. This will allow me to have a more secure and efficient network.
Fortinet is not as focused on cybersecurity as some other companies, but they are very strong in network security. They are constantly coming up with new and innovative solutions that help us to protect our networks. I am very happy with Fortinet FortiGate and I would recommend it to anyone looking for a reliable and secure network solution.
We have deployed the solution in multiple locations.
Our partner is involved in maintenance, especially when a new FortiOS is released. We engage the vendor to understand the maintenance requirements, such as stability and any potential risks. We follow the vendor's recommendations and perform maintenance accordingly. We also use FortiAnalyzer to manage our logs. We delete old logs in accordance with government policy, which requires six months of data to be kept. We take care to ensure that maintenance does not affect these logs.
Fortinet FortiGate is one of the best and most affordable solutions with top-notch technology on the market. We get something that is both cheaper and of good quality with Fortinet FortiGate. Fortinet submitted the lowest-priced bid and met all of our technical requirements.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Good licensing, saves costs, and provides good security and visibility
What is our primary use case?
I used this solution while working with my last organization. I handled plain firewall deployment as well as SD-WAN deployment.
How has it helped my organization?
I was providing consulting services to various Telco customers. It helped customers save on the cost of highly expensive MPLS links. With the help of Secure SD-WAN, they were able to utilize broadband or even LTE connectivity, which saves costs. That's the flexibility that Secure SD-WAN gives to various customers. In addition to saving costs, they are also able to utilize active-active load balancing, where you can have two parallel links: primary and secondary. The secondary one used to sit idle in traditional scenarios, whereas now, the solution gives you the flexibility to configure both links as active-active, so you can prioritize critical traffic from link one and other traffic from link two. At the same time, you also have the option to maintain redundancy.
Secure SD-WAN is a great way to manage your entire organization network, especially the WAN network. Customers don't have to hop to multiple places. Fortinet has a solution called FortiManager. With the help of that, you can monitor, configure, and maintain your entire organization's network. It's a very convenient option. It's a single pane of glass from a customer's point of view. They don't have to log in to individual devices, and they can see the real traffic. They can see what's coming into the network, what sort of alerts or logs are there, and what sort of applications are being consumed.
Secure SD-WAN doesn't help with tool consolidation, but it's a secure way or mechanism they provide so that if branch users are accessing the internet, they can directly break out from the branch location rather than coming back to the data center. In that way, it improves the user experience while also giving security at the highest level.
I have not interacted much with Secure SD-WAN in terms of API integration or third-party integrations. However, they have pretty good integration with the RADIUS, LDAP, and AD servers. In that way, they have everything in-built. You can make the firewall a DNS server or some sort of DHCP server. Such features are included there. From a security standpoint, they have open API integration with their own SIEM or SOAR solutions. Third-party API integration is also possible, but the API details that are exposed are very limited.
The integrated application protection provided by Secure SD-WAN is a cool feature. They have real-time scanning of the application with the help of SSL inspection. You get to see the real-time traffic of applications, and you can protect your network from harmful websites. They have a signature database for that. This data also gets refreshed. It's a direct feed that the device takes from the central intelligence.
When you have Secure SD-WAN in place, you are more secure from the outside internet. They have a flavor of SASE, but I have not worked on it.
When you have a granular view of your entire network including users and security features being enabled, you get more visibility into your network. You get to know what's coming in and going out. If an administrator sees that some traffic is being hit repetitively from a particular location, functionality is available to block a region, country, or even an IP or domain.
In terms of Secure SD-WAN reducing our mean time to resolve, in the case of issues specific to SD-WAN, I've seen instances where customers can look into the dashboard and inform the support team that this is the issue they are facing. This helps them to have some visibility into these firewalls and isolate the entire issue from the technology perspective; for example, when a wireless client is facing some sort of challenge accessing the internet, whereas some of the wired users are able to access the internet. The testing tools given in the FortiGate GUI dashboard come in handy during troubleshooting. With the very user-friendly interface, it becomes very obvious and easy for any IT guy to simply follow the workflow to resolve any day-to-day operational issues.
What is most valuable?
The security features that they have are quite good. On top of that, their licensing model is quite nice where they don't charge you anything for the SD-WAN functionality for the firewall. The routing and firewall features are also good.
The unified view that they have built into this firewall is good. Within the same dashboard, you get to see the security profiles, the type of traffic that's passing through, the top applications that are being consumed, etc.
It's also very easy to use.
What needs improvement?
I was not looking after the operations part, but sometimes, I did get engaged in some critical activities related to operations. There are some caveats in every product. Tunnel flapping was one of the major things I had seen wherein your internet link remains but your VPN tunnel is down. However, since I got a fix from the TAC team, I have not noticed it, but the customer complained a few times that they couldn't access the internet because of this problem. There were tunnel issues where there was already established connectivity, but at the kernel level, there were some issues. For example, there's a feature for auto-site connectivity wherein whenever it automatically creates a new tunnel, at the kernel level, it also creates an interface. Sometimes, that interface crashes and a new interface could not be created, which results in connectivity loss.
Fortinet has established itself in the SMB market segment. It's doing pretty well in that space, but when it comes to the enterprise segment, they are lagging a little bit. It all boils down to the performance of the hardware. If I enable all of the security features available on my device, the throughput degrades quite a lot. If I have put 10 GBPS of throughput on a firewall and I enable all of these features available, such as IPS or UTM functionalities, the throughput comes down to 1 GBPS.
For how long have I used the solution?
I used Fortinet FortiGate for seven months. I last used it in February of this year.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I'd rate it a seven out of ten in terms of stability.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The solution offers the option of deploying VMs or virtual machines to any public cloud, such as AWS or Azure. It provides such flexibility. If you have any application hosted in the cloud space, you can have a VM spin of the FortiGate over there and have a site-to-site tunnel established, so the scalability is there. Otherwise, at the site level, it's mostly hardware-based work. If you size it properly, then you have the option to expand. You might have chosen a low-end model because of the tight budget. In that case, it's not scalable on a specific site. However, if you have a certain number of sites, for example, if you have 400 of them and you want to expand to 500 or 1,000, there is simply a license that goes at the FortiManager level to support additional devices. FortiManager provides a single pane of management.
I'd rate it a seven out of ten in terms of scalability.
How are customer service and support?
My experience was not that rewarding. It took me around three hours in total to get a simple issue identified and fixed. I escalated it to their L3 engineer, and after that, I was able to resolve the issue. The entire process took around three hours. First, their initial level person was troubleshooting, then it went to the next level, and then it went to the highest level.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Neutral
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
From the security perspective, I have not used any other solution, but I did have a glance at Cisco's portfolio. Cisco Meraki is one of the solutions that you can compare it with. Others were more specific to the routing and switching domain. I know the concepts and theory of Cisco SD-WAN, but I have not used it in a real environment for any customer.
How was the initial setup?
For one of the clients, it was deployed on the Azure public cloud. Initially, it was not easy. It was complex. Every product and technology requires a certain type of prerequisite, and when you have anything hosted on a public cloud, it becomes a tedious job to get things done quickly because multiple stakeholders are involved in that.
I have deployed Secure SD-WAN specifically for many customers. I find it easy, but you need one person to be at the site for remote connectivity. That person just needs to do the basic configuration. Once the device has IP reachability, you can easily discover it from FortiManager, which is the central controller. So, once you have the device on FortiManager, it takes a few clicks to onboard the device because you already would have a template in place.
The deployment duration depends on the number of sites. For a customer with ten sites, it would take a week's time because there are a lot of dependencies. It also depends on the customer's readiness and availability, but a week's time would be enough for the deployment of ten sites. If there is proper planning in place, you can also deploy 50 sites in a week, but that's something you cannot control from your side because there are a lot of dependencies on the customer and the service provider. If you have to integrate it into a customer's existing network, it becomes quite challenging to make them understand your prerequisites. There are instances where nobody is available from the customer side from the technical standpoint to help you. Those are the roadblocks, but from the solution perspective, it's quite easy to onboard devices.
What about the implementation team?
The deployment can be done by one person if that person is dedicated to a single project, but if more projects are running in parallel, you would require a few more people.
It does require maintenance, which includes upgrading the operating system and installing patches. Two to three people would be enough for around 500 site maintenance but not in the 24/7 case. If it's 24/7, then nine people would be required for that.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
By default, they give SD-WAN along with the firewall. They don't have separate licensing for the SD-WAN functionality. However, they have security licenses that are sold separately on a subscription basis. Customers can consume these security features to protect their users from internet traffic.
What other advice do I have?
To those evaluating this solution, I'd advise doing a PoC of different vendors who are meeting their requirements. They can then decide for themselves after seeing the demo.
Overall, I'd rate it an eight out of ten. It's user-friendly. It's also good features-wise, but their support is weak, and on the architecture front, it's not true SD-WAN. It's not decoupling the control chain functionality from the device to the controller.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Easy to set up but needs better pricing and more helpful support
What is our primary use case?
The solution is primarily used as a border firewall as well as for internal LAN segregation, internal IPv4 policy management, a VPN for end users, and IPSec tunnels.
How has it helped my organization?
Before we implemented this solution, we had only one firewall and old Linux IP tables with no graphical user interface.
What is most valuable?
There is no one feature that stands out as most valuable compared to another. All features are correct and no extra items are needed.
What needs improvement?
The price of licensing could be better. The security of the FortiOS needs improvement, and features are available only in CLI. They could be available also in GUI.
Features like forward traffic capture or NAC in the VPN should take into consideration both Linux devices and Apple devices.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've used the solution for more than ten years.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The scalability is okay.
How are customer service and support?
Technical support is not helpful.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Neutral
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We previously worked with Check Point, Palo Alto, Cisco, Watchguard, and PFsense.
How was the initial setup?
The setup is easy. Support is not helpful.
What about the implementation team?
We handled the initial setup in-house.
What was our ROI?
The solution is very expensive.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The price of licensing is too high.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We did not previously evaluate other options before choosing this solution.
What other advice do I have?
Other Fortinet products are not the best, and Fortinet should take care as this will influence brand reputation.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Easy to configure, has a robust OS, and offers a lot of features at a very good price
What is our primary use case?
The majority of use cases have been around UTM. Initially, they were famous for their UTM solution because nobody was offering what Fortinet was offering.
We most probably use the latest version.
How has it helped my organization?
Fortinet has a very strong OS. They have a single OS through which they integrate all the networks and security operations. Our experience has been very good. Fortinet gives us a single fabric for the security and network teams. This unification has helped us a lot in providing Secure SD-WAN and other solutions, such as network switches, wireless controllers, FortiNAC, FortiAuthenticator, etc. They have a single pane of glass for all these from the monitoring and visibility aspect.
The integrated application protection provided by Secure SD-WAN is very good. Fortinet is a security-focused company. The features related to application recognition and how to enhance the performance and security of applications are pretty good.
The customers for whom we deployed FortiGate have become long-term customers of Fortinet. Even when they compare the solution with some of the other vendors, they're more comfortable with going with Fortinet and upgrading and refreshing the hardware and the software. It's a very good product, and the customer satisfaction is pretty good.
It impacts operational efficiency because we can quickly make the changes. For example, Cisco has some limitations in terms of the time it takes for any change to take effect, which impacts the operational efficiency, whereas in the case of Fortinet, they've got a very quick way of doing the changes and reverting them, which eliminates any downtimes because of the configurations. Their method for configuring and applying policies is very simple and easy. Because of that, it's very easy to do complex changes, and in the case of misconfiguration, revert those changes without much of an impact. Overall, Fortinet FortiGate brings a lot of operational improvements because of the strength of FortiOS.
Secure SD-WAN has helped us remediate threats more quickly. Normally, with the WAN solutions or the simple SD-WAN solutions, security is done on the hub side. With the Secure SD-WAN solution, we can apply security at the branch level, so unnecessary or malicious traffic doesn't reach the data centers or the hub site, which helps in improving the overall security posture. Also, we can tighten and apply a single security policy across all the branches or different segments of the WAN, which improves overall security. Fortinet offers different security measures for blocking malicious traffic and having a uniform policy across the entire organization.
Secure SD-WAN has helped reduce our mean time to detect (MTTD) and mean time to resolve (MTTR). Applying a central security policy at the branch level immediately helps us to detect any malicious traffic and block it there, so the chances of anything reaching the hub or the data center side are less. It improves MTTD and MTTR because it has a very good interface where we can easily respond to all the attacks and manipulate things. Applying security with the help of Secure SD-WAN helps to mitigate attacks from where they are originating, which improves MTTD and MTTR.
Secure SD-WAN has helped reduce help desk tickets. Because of the operational efficiency and security, there are not many issues that impact the number of tickets.
With the help of Secure SD-WAN, we can provide operational efficiency because we can apply policies on an application-level basis. With Secure SD-WAN, we can apply a security policy per application. The central security application structure helps to apply all the measures from one central place and from the cloud. Because it's connected to many intelligence centers, it future-proofs a business and improves it overall.
What is most valuable?
Fortinet has a very good solution for Secure SD-WAN. One very good feature is that they have robust and simple FortiOS through which they provide all solutions. That's their strength. There's not much complexity involved with the Secure SD-WAN solution of Fortinet as compared to Cisco's solution, which has a lot of flexibility but complexity also comes with that flexibility.
What needs improvement?
From a reporting perspective, there's room for improvement. They provide FortiAnalyzer through which one can get some enhancements, but the visibility and reporting still need slight improvement. Recently, a customer had a requirement of getting some reports on their internet usage. Palo Alto has a bit better reporting than the Cisco and Fortinet firewalls, but we cannot get granular details about the user-level security, usage, etc.
Their support also needs improvement.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been working with this solution for around ten years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It's very stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
For small and mid-level enterprises, it has been a very good solution, and that's why they captured that market. Our experience with it has been very good. It's easy to configure and deploy. In our country, their main market is small and big enterprises, but they are gradually focusing on the performance aspect. It's being used in large enterprises as well as a firewall solution.
It's scalable. There were some performance issues a few years ago, but they've fixed them for better performance, optimization, and high throughput. Performance-wise, it's very good.
How are customer service and support?
Support is one of the areas that they need to look into because as compared to some of the other companies, Fortinet's support is not that responsive. The product is very stable, but their support needs to be improved. I'd rate their support a six out of ten.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Neutral
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We used Cisco and Juniper. We switched to FortiGate because it offers a lot of features at a very good price point. Unlike some of the other vendors, you don't have many license restrictions. For large and medium enterprises, they provide a wireless controller, authenticator, and mail features. There are so many features integrated within FortiOS, whereas, with many vendors, you have to work with different products. It's very helpful for small organizations with tighter budgets. There's also the ease of configuration that helps to bring things online as quickly as possible as compared to some of the other solutions that have a learning curve and that take some time.
How was the initial setup?
I mostly work on the pre-sales side. I discuss all the features, and then I work with the deployment team. They do the installation.
Its installation is easy. Normally, we get the scope and have the high-level design. After that, we go to the low-level design where we manage all the configuration templates. We have discussions with the customer and finalize all the policies that need to be applied at the site. We segment sites by size, traffic, application usage, etc. We apply the policies on a group basis, and then we apply the configurations on the controllers or the sites.
In our area, people are mostly interested in on-prem setup instead of cloud because not many controllers are located within the country, so the traffic has to be traversed outside the country. For banks and financial sectors, on-prem is more suitable, but small organizations can have it on the cloud.
What about the implementation team?
We implement it ourselves. For small projects, one or two people are good enough because we majorly find all the things at the LLD stage. We have a team that works on the LLD and configurations, and then we've got an on-field team that takes those configurations and applies the changes. Normally, if the implementation isn't distributed across the country, not many resources are required. Two or three resources are good enough, but if it's distributed across different regions, then a larger team is required. Once we have the templates, things are posted automatically, so not much to be done at the sites. We just have to do connectivity and configure the policies. As compared to other deployments, we require much less staff for the deployment tasks.
It requires maintenance, but generally, the product is very stable and doesn't require much maintenance. Normally, there aren't many changes. If there are any issues, we definitely need to monitor and check. Most of the issues aren't related to the solution itself if you have implemented it in the right manner, so planning needs to be done in the right manner.
What was our ROI?
There's definitely an ROI. Having a centralized way of managing and applying policies across the entire organization always helps. The time to manage, operate, and resolve issues is much lower. When you have a central place to manage and do the changes, you get efficiency and time savings.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
A year or two years back, its price was competitive and reasonable. That was one of the reasons that people easily switched to Fortinet. Over the last two years, the prices have increased drastically. However, the prices of others have also increased. An advantage is there from the price point but not as much as it was previously.
What other advice do I have?
It's a very good product. It has all the features required for operations. We strongly recommend using Fortinet for your edge or data center security or for your SD-WAN. FortiGate is doing very well. Fortinet has been capturing the security market, and now they're capturing the market for SD-WAN as well. They're a leader in Gartner's Quadrant. Their FortiMail and FortiWeb solutions are also very good. They provide all these solutions, and we have deployed all these solutions in the market. They're working perfectly, and customers have minor complaints about them.
Currently, no SD-WAN solution is interoperable with other vendors. Every SD-WAN vendor has its own solution. There's no standardization, so there isn't much interoperability. For example, we need a controller and branch-level software or hardware. Hardware is agnostic for some vendors, but normally, vendors also have their hardware. There are a few vendors that provide hardware-agnostic SD-WAN solutions, but Fortinet has its own hardware on which the complete SD-WAN solution runs.
Overall, I'd rate Fortinet FortiGate an eight out of ten.
Provides solid protection against viruses, malware, and other threats
What is our primary use case?
We use FortiGate for our firewall. We have a typical business environment that includes end-user workstations, an ERP, web hosting solutions, etc. It's around 600 endpoints.
How has it helped my organization?
FortiGate improved our security. It's one of the best hardware firewalls. We're secured against various outside threats. It's hard to know how effective a firewall is if you aren't experiencing attacks. We haven't been affected, so we've seen the benefits of the solution from day one.
What is most valuable?
FortiGate provides solid protection against viruses, malware, and other threats.
What needs improvement?
It would be nice if FortiGate incorporated some built-in endpoint protection features. I would also like a built-in SOC dashboard for managing multiple Fortinet firewalls.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have used FortiGate for five years, including my work at my previous company.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
FortiGate is stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
FortiGate could be more scalable.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I've used Cisco firewalls previously. FortiGate is a little better in terms of web protection, but it's more expensive.
How was the initial setup?
We had professional services deploy FortiGate. For maintenance, we have an annual maintenance contract, and there are periodic firmware upgrades. A network admin is responsible for maintenance.
What was our ROI?
We've seen a return in the form of greater security and threat protection.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
FortiGate is a little expensive. In addition to hardware and licensing, there are some implementation and maintenance costs.
What other advice do I have?
I rate Fortinet FortiGate a nine out of ten. I would recommend FortiGate, but Cisco is one of the best. The biggest lesson I've learned from using FortiGate is that it's crucial to install and maintain the solution properly.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
It's a user-friendly solution with good interoperability, and it's cheaper than most
What is our primary use case?
Our primary use cases for FortiGate are SD-WAN and the next-gen firewall.
How has it helped my organization?
Most clients in the Philippines seek a cost-effective solution that can secure their network, and FortiGate is often their first choice. If your network is secure, there's less downtime and threat exposure, increasing overall efficiency.
Fortinet's secure SD-WAN helps us remedy threats faster. It's user-friendly, and you can see everything on the FortiGate dashboard through a single pane of glass. Secure SD-WAN has reduced our mean time to detect. We haven't had any significant issues so far.
SD-WAN has reduced our help desk tickets by making us secure. Many of our clients switched from other brands to Fortinet, and they feel that the FortiGate box and the added security FortiGuard provides have exceeded their expectations.
What is most valuable?
FortiGate firewalls are user-friendly, and I like the security profiling features.
FortiGate has always had good interoperability. Their fabric enables you to integrate a lot of products into one vendor.
The secure SD-WAN gives you a tool for failproof your connections, especially with a branch-to-branch setup. FortiGate also comes with FortiGuard, which is an excellent threat-detection service. They have their own R&D and threat intelligence for FortiGuard.
What needs improvement?
While FortiGate is cheaper than most other solutions, we're seeing increased license renewal costs. Most of our clients are asking for more significant discounts because the price is going up.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have been using the solution for more than two years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I rate FortiGate an eight and a half out of ten for stability.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I rate FortiGate a nine out of ten for scalability.
How are customer service and support?
I rate Fortinet support a nine out of ten.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We also use Meraki. FortiGate has advantages in terms of usability. Also, if we don't pay for the Meraki license, it becomes useless.
How was the initial setup?
Deploying FortiGate is straightforward. It typically takes about three days to deploy and configure the solution. One person is usually enough to deploy it.
What was our ROI?
Most of our clients are still using the FortiGate D Series, so they have gotten their money's worth.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Fortinet is much cheaper compared to the other leading platforms. However, most of our customers are asking for bigger discounts on license renewals.
What other advice do I have?
I rate Fortinet FortiGate a nine out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Highly stable, quick setup, and helpful support
What is our primary use case?
We are using Fortinet FortiGate SWG as a firewall.
How has it helped my organization?
This solution has helped our organization because it is connected to the internet and has provided us with stable VPNs and networking solutions.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable feature of Fortinet FortiGate SWG is its stability.
What needs improvement?
We are providing VoIP and the IP licensing could improve in Fortinet FortiGate SWG.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Fortinet FortiGate SWG for approximately one year.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I rate the stability of Fortinet FortiGate SWG a ten out of ten.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I rate the scalability of Fortinet FortiGate SWG a ten out of ten.
How are customer service and support?
I rate the support of Fortinet FortiGate SWG a ten out of ten.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup of Fortinet FortiGate SWG is simple and quick.
What was our ROI?
We have received a return on investment.
What other advice do I have?
I rate Fortinet FortiGate SWG a ten out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Feature-rich, affordable, and has good performance
What is our primary use case?
Our customers use these devices as security devices, and we sell these devices to our customers. We also use it ourselves. We have the entire lab, and we use some of the functions in our local network.
How has it helped my organization?
It protects our customers' networks from viruses and threats.
What is most valuable?
The firewall, IPS, and VPN functions are the most valuable features. The antivirus functions are also good.
It works very well. It has a lot of different functionalities. Its cost is also fine for our customers.
What needs improvement?
In some cases, its initial setup could be hard for customers.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have 10 to 12 years of experience with these devices.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Their devices are quite stable. We have not had any problems with the operating systems or maintenance of subscriptions. It is a robust device.
How are customer service and support?
In most cases, they work very fast. It also depends on the device they are supporting. In the case of FortiGate, we do not have any complaints, but when we had to buy the FortiADC solution for one of our customers, we faced quite a few difficulties with technical support. I do not know why, but it could be that some devices are supported by different teams in Fortinet. We had difficulties with FortiADC, but we have not had any problems with FortiGate. I would rate their support for FortiGate a nine out of ten.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We worked with Cisco and Check Point firewalls. We worked with Cisco ASA for a long time. We worked with it for about five years, and we were happy with it, but it was old-fashioned. We went to Fortinet and started working with this company.
FortiGate has good security functions and high-level technical documentation. Their documentation is very easy to understand.
FortiGate's performance is also better than Cisco ASA. It has 10 VDOMs. It is a great function because you can add virtual functions for different groups in your network. It is quite useful.
How was the initial setup?
It is deployed on-premises. Our customers prefer to deploy not only Fortinet devices but all security devices on-premises. They rarely use cloud licenses. Some customers only buy it from us, and for some customers, we also set it up.
Its setup is easy for us, but not every company wants to use our service for setting it up because of the cost. They prefer to install it themselves. In some cases, it could be hard for them.
In terms of the implementation strategy, we first try to understand what problem a customer wants to solve by using FortiGate. We collect a lot of information about a customer's network, such as protocols and devices being used. We try to prepare this device in our local lab. We preload the device and send it to the customer, and then we finalize the installation in the customer's building.
We have very technical staff, and we do not have difficulties with installations. We have had situations where customers do not have much experience with it, and then we recommend them to go for certain features such as IPS, antivirus, etc.
The deployment duration depends on the size of the environment, but generally, it does not take more than one or two months.
What about the implementation team?
Generally, two to three people are required for the deployment.
For maintenance, our customers have technical staff. They regularly check and ensure that all the functions are working. We are glad to help them if they need any help.
What was our ROI?
We have seen an ROI. We have bought a lot of these devices, and we have had a good experience with them. It has saved us a lot of money.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
It is quite affordable for our customers. There is a separate cost for IPS, antivirus, web filtering, and other features. They have a great choice of licenses. You can go for the license that you want, which is quite useful.
You have to buy a support license for FortiCare. In most cases, people buy the UTM bundle that comes with IPS, web filtering, and FortiCare.
What other advice do I have?
They are on the right path. They have improved a lot over the past 10 years. Fortinet is one of the leaders in security devices along with Cisco, Palo Alto, and Check Point.
I would rate Fortinet FortiGate a nine out of ten. It is stable. It has quite a lot of features, such as IPS, VPN, etc. It is affordable for our customers. It is a good choice.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Highly reliable, reasonably priced, and worth the money
What is our primary use case?
We are using Fortinet for administration over local users that need to connect with our wireless. We have users that come from different domains, and there are certain limits and restrictions that need to be implemented.
How has it helped my organization?
There is not much visible improvement, but it's a stable and reliable environment. We did not see anything critical in the production environment.
What is most valuable?
Reliability is the best feature. We faced some issues when we were setting it up, but the service, portal, and administration are good.
What needs improvement?
There is some development gap. We had experienced bugs in their operating system. When we were planning to upgrade it, there was no patch available for a bug, and the support team was saying that they need to work on that. That's the part they should work on.
There are some complex administration tasks in their administration portal. That needs to be improved.
For how long have I used the solution?
It has been around two years since we set it up.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It's stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It's scalable. We have 1,500 to 2,000 people across the world. We have multiple regions and multiple sites.
How are customer service and support?
We contacted them for a few cases. I would rate them a seven out of ten. They could be better at finding solutions.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Neutral
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
This was the first option, but we'll try Cisco as well for our Wi-Fi setup for the next one to two years.
It was a management call to go for this. They know what is best for their business.
How was the initial setup?
I was not exactly involved in its initial setup, but at a later stage, I had to jump into that. I was more into Cisco setup.
Overall, the setup was easy. There was a portal, and most of the things were similar to other hardware we use, such as Palo Alto. We found some bugs during the setup, and there was not much support available from the Fortinet support team
In terms of maintenance, there are upgrades available roughly every quarter.
What was our ROI?
It's worth the money.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The price range is quite acceptable and normal.
What other advice do I have?
It's excellent. The services, administration, and reliability are up to the mark. They just need to improve it a bit.
I would recommend it if you want to set it up for your business. Overall, I would rate it a nine out of ten.