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.

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.

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.

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.

I've been working with this solution for around ten years.

It's very stable.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

FortiGate provides solid protection against viruses, malware, and other threats.

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.

I have used FortiGate for five years, including my work at my previous company.

FortiGate is stable.

FortiGate could be more scalable.

I've used Cisco firewalls previously. FortiGate is a little better in terms of web protection, but it's more expensive.

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.

We've seen a return in the form of greater security and threat protection.

FortiGate is a little expensive. In addition to hardware and licensing, there are some implementation and maintenance costs.

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.

Our primary use cases for FortiGate are SD-WAN and the next-gen firewall.

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.

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.

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.

We have been using the solution for more than two years.

I rate FortiGate an eight and a half out of ten for stability.

I rate FortiGate a nine out of ten for scalability.

I rate Fortinet support a nine out of ten.

We also use Meraki. FortiGate has advantages in terms of usability. Also, if we don't pay for the Meraki license, it becomes useless.

Deploying FortiGate is straightforward. It typically takes about three days to deploy and configure the solution. One person is usually enough to deploy it.

Most of our clients are still using the FortiGate D Series, so they have gotten their money's worth.

Fortinet is much cheaper compared to the other leading platforms. However, most of our customers are asking for bigger discounts on license renewals.

I rate Fortinet FortiGate a nine out of ten.

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.

It protects our customers' networks from viruses and threats.

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.

In some cases, its initial setup could be hard for customers.

I have 10 to 12 years of experience with these devices.

Their devices are quite stable. We have not had any problems with the operating systems or maintenance of subscriptions. It is a robust device.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

There is not much visible improvement, but it's a stable and reliable environment. We did not see anything critical in the production environment.

Reliability is the best feature. We faced some issues when we were setting it up, but the service, portal, and administration are good.

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.

It has been around two years since we set it up.

It's stable.

It's scalable. We have 1,500 to 2,000 people across the world. We have multiple regions and multiple sites.

We contacted them for a few cases. I would rate them a seven out of ten. They could be better at finding solutions.

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.

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.

It's worth the money.

The price range is quite acceptable and normal.

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.

FortiGate is a hardware firewall that we deploy for our customers. I work on the system integration team and install whichever solution the clients choose. We also provide support, including maintenance and service. The customers contact us if they have any problems.

The firewalls are deployed on-premise, but you can also implement FortiCloud, which can integrate with public or private cloud platforms. If you have five or six locations in various countries, FortiCloud can provide centralized security support for those offices.

FortiGate is on the cheaper end, and it offers good value.

Palo Alto has a feature called WildFire Analysis that is unavailable in FortiGate. WildFire is better than a sandbox because it can address zero-day threats and vulnerabilities. It can immediately identify zero-day threats from the cloud.

Fortinet uses a separate solution called FortiSandbox. It needs to download signatures to identify malware, which takes significantly longer. WildFire is a cloud-based platform that collects threat information from users worldwide.

I have used FortiGate for eight months, but I have worked with Fortinet products, including FortiManager, for three years.

I rate FortiGate nine out of 10 for stability.

I rate FortiGate nine out of 10 for scalability. Fortinet sells models that can accommodate more people. You can choose a cheaper model if you only have 20-30 users, but you will need to spend more money for a FortiGate solution that covers 5,000.

I rate Fortinet support eight out of 10. Sometimes, the Level 1 support can't fix the issue, so it needs to be escalated, and we can't get help until the next day. Otherwise, it's okay. Their frontline support can fix most basic issues, but we may need to wait a day or two for special problems.

I also deploy Check Point and Palo Alto hardware for my clients. Check Point has been in the Indian market longer. Palo Alto came into the picture about three or four years ago.

In my opinion, Palo Alto is the better solution. It has WildFire Analysis, and you can configure virtual routers within the system, but Fortinet is less expensive. We deploy Check Point for our larger customers. It's more appropriate for multinational companies with 10,000 employees or more.

Deploying FortiGate is straightforward. You have to check with the customers to see if their offices use other devices. Next, you must do the basic configuration and connect all the networks available at the customer's site individually.

The SD-WAN setup is the most time-consuming task because you need to configure the address and service objects. After that, you implement basic policies and connect the office network with Fortinet. Deployment only requires one person.

FortiGate is on the cheaper end. The price varies depending on the model of appliance you're using. It's affordable for a university or a small business. A firewall typically has a license for three years that includes installation and support, but maintenance is separate.

I rate Fortinet FortiGate eight out of 10. FortiGate is a solid solution, but Palo Alto is the best. I recommend Palo Alto to customers who can afford it. The second best is Check Point. When considering which firewall solution to use, you should look at your budget and the number of users.

We use it for the network security operations of our customers. We've many different use cases, such as client security, server security, or DMZ sites.

The secure web gateway module and the application control module are valuable. HA operations are very easy.

It's a very easy and simple solution for implementation and integration. I don't have any problems with this solution.

Web security solutions can be improved.

I've been using this solution for 10 years.

It's stable.

Its scalability is good. It's generally used in only one place as a standalone, but sometimes, it's used at multiple locations.

Their support is good. I'd rate it an eight out of ten.

I've used Palo Alto, which is a good solution for a firewall, and their application signatures are very good.

I was sometimes involved in its deployment. Its deployment was simple for me. It was very simple and easy. It took five to six hours.

It does require maintenance. There are probably one to two people required for its maintenance.

Its price is normal. If I compare it with other vendors, such as Palo Alto, it's normal. Palo Alto is expensive.

I'd recommend it to other people. It's good, and in our country, this product is very popular in our sector. It's easy and cheapest.

Overall, I'd rate Fortinet FortiGate an eight out of ten.

We use Fortinet FortiGate to prevent intruder connections to our internal network.

Fortinet FortiGate's unified view around network operations and security operations is good.

The solution is easy to integrate and configure with our ERP and other applications. I am satisfied with the integrated application protection provided by Fortinet FortiGate.

The Fortinet FortiGate 60E Series resolved the bottleneck problem and CPU usage that was previously experienced with the 60D Series. Now, our employees can check their emails without encountering any bottleneck issues, and the CPU usage remains stable at around 50 percent.

We are satisfied with the ability to remediate threats more quickly.

We are pleased with the amount of time saved in detecting our mean time.

The signature database and zero-day detection are Fortinet FortiGate's most valuable features.

The Fortinet FortiGate 60D Series poses a problem by causing a bottleneck when several users access their emails simultaneously, as the device consistently consumes 90 percent of the CPU resources.

The reporting could be improved. Currently, without the additional reporting module, we only have access to basic reporting. However, reporting is crucial for network security, and it should be included as a standard feature.

The price and technical support have room for improvement.

I have been using Fortinet FortiGate for three years.

The local vendor support needs improvement.

Previously, I have utilized few other brands of NG Firewalls, which offer certain advantages. However, when comparing their price and performance to that of Fortinet FortiGate, Fortinet proves to be a strong competitor.

The time required for a basic deployment is roughly three weeks, whereas a full deployment involving customizations and optimization of rules and policies may take up to two and a half months.

We experienced a return on our investment, however, when it comes to security, it is challenging to determine a precise value.

The price is high compared to some of the other solutions.

I give Fortinet FortiGate an eight out of ten.

We saw time to value within the first month of using Fortinet FortiGate.

We deployed Fortinet FortiGate in one location and the maintenance was mostly handled by internally and sometimes a third party.

We have deployed this firewall for many companies. Our clients are financial and medical companies.

It enabled our clients to reach locations and access their applications easily with no latency. It provided ease of access.

Its threat prevention capabilities are most valuable.

It's a user-friendly firewall. Most of the tasks are very simple. It's simple to configure and troubleshoot this firewall.

The improvement is related to logs. Instead of the CLI, we should be able to have more insights into the logs of the firewall in the GUI.

I faced a lot of issues when I was trying to deploy the firewall through FortiManager. The firewall is stable, but FortiManager is too buggy, and it doesn't work properly. It gives too many errors.

There are some issues with Fortinet SD-WAN. It's quite complex.

I've been using this solution for more than four years.

It's a very stable product.

It's scalable. We have plans to increase its usage.

Most of the time, they are helpful, but there are times when they don't resolve an issue right away. They take the log, and then they take their time to give input on the issue. Most of the time, they take one or two days to get back after analyzing the logs. Instead of that, they can just schedule a session to resolve the issue right away because sometimes the issue impacts the production environment, so we need to resolve that issue as soon as possible. Overall, I'd rate them a six out of ten.

I have worked with other firewalls. Fortinet FortiGate is better than Palo Alto and Check Point firewalls. It's more user-friendly.

I have deployed it for a bank at a core level. On the perimeter, there was a Palo Alto firewall, and at the core level, we deployed the FortiGate firewall at DC and DR locations. After that, we deployed SD-WAN. We replaced the MPLS switch with the Fortinet SD-WAN device, so the whole branch traffic comes to the SD-WAN box, and from there, it comes to the FortiGate firewall, and then it goes to the Palo Alto firewall for the internet access and resource access. While migrating branches from MPLS to SD-WAN, we did require a maintenance window.

There was no difficulty. It was very user-friendly. I have had many difficulties with the Check Point firewall. I have deployed major projects on the FortiGate firewall. I migrated more than a thousand branches on Fortinet SD-WAN and implemented FortiGate super massive firewalls at DC and DR locations. There were no complexities. Only at one location, I had an issue related to SD-WAN, but my query was resolved by Fortinet's local team.

It's an on-premises firewall for the DC and DR locations. I have never worked on cloud projects, but if there is any opportunity to deploy it on the cloud, I will do it. I have only done on-premises deployment.

I am an implementation engineer. I deployed and configured the whole firewall. I also troubleshot any issues. When I had any queries, they were clarified by Fortinet's engineers.

Its pricing is good. It's average or normal as compared to Palo Alto and Check Point firewalls.

I didn't evaluate other options.

I'd recommend this firewall to others. Most of the time, when I do PoCs, I recommend Fortinet FortiGate. It's quite easy to manage and deploy.

I'd rate Fortinet FortiGate an eight out of ten.

There are various use cases for Fortinet FortiGate, including firewall protection for internet access, data centers, branches, and SD-WAN. We use the firewall in multiple locations throughout our network, taking advantage of its many features, such as the promising CDR feature and security profiles like the WAF filter and application DNS security. We deploy these features in different parts of the network. Additionally, some customers use Fortinet FortiGate in the cloud to safeguard their cloud servers within platforms like Microsoft tenants.

Our customers are using Secure SD-WAN for connecting different branches. For example, oil and gas companies have different branches all over Egypt, which are not in the main city, so they need a secure connection and stability for certain protocols, such as voice and things like that. They also need visibility. They need to understand which applications are consuming SD-WAN.

Some of the customers are also using SD-WAN for load balancing. For SD-WAN, you need at least two internet connections, so some of the customers are using it as a load-balancing technique. Overall, there are a lot of features for which customers are using SD-WAN.

For our customers, Secure SD-WAN is very useful for giving the right priority to the applications and controlling the proper use of the application.

Secure SD-WAN's interoperability with other systems and applications in the environment is very good. The integrated application protection provided by Secure SD-WAN is also good. There is a very good integration with all the applications and portfolios. We don't integrate the firewall with the application itself, but it does what is needed to control and reroute the traffic.

Secure SD-WAN has a lot of benefits. There is a calculator on Fortinet's website. When you feed the right information to that calculator, it tells you how much money you will save by acquiring SD-WAN. The first benefit is that you're going to save money. Instead of buying multiple ISP connections, MPLS, and other such things, you can use the normal internet and apply SD-WAN on it, so you can save a lot of money. You also don't need to increase the bandwidth. SD-WAN helps with the routing of your traffic and the optimum use of your links. It's efficient and secure, and it saves you a lot of money, and of course, there is the security of the firewall that's applied on SD-WAN. If we're comparing it with other vendors like Cisco, you are not getting the firewall features.

It's very efficient. There is a lot of visibility. It reduces the number of incidents. If there is any problem, you can immediately log in to the firewall, and you will know if there is a notification about bandwidth consumption or any other issue, or if there is any drop in connectivity. It makes the operation very easy. It makes it easy for the teams to respond to incidents and manage issues. SD-WAN helps to remediate threats more quickly and efficiently because, with SD-WAN, there are a lot of applications going through different links, so if you can know which link an application is using and what's on the link, you can make the right decision in a very fast way to fix it. It provides both visibility and efficiency.

It reduces your mean time to detect (MTTD). In the new version, which is version 7.x, of the FortiGate firewall, through the main dashboard, you can know what is going on. If you've done the dashboard and you're putting these statistics in front of you on a screen, once you look at it, you'll know what's going on and what's the problem. It, of course, will give you the tools and the right information to reduce the time to solve.

It's hard to say whether it has reduced help desk tickets because it's more on the operational side, but it helps them a lot. The operations team is not handling the firewall. It's either the network team or the network security team. Generally, once it's up and running, it just works. It's different from having an antivirus or something else that can be changed from day-to-day activities. With this one, once you turn it on, the service will be stable unless you have a problem with your internet. It doesn't cause a lot of problems.

In terms of helping to future-proof business, from a partner perspective, it gives you a lot of flexibility to enhance the customer network. It opens a lot of doors for sales, for a new business, and for new potential. That's from the partner side. From the customer side, you can save money and solve a lot of problems. If you need to connect with a few branches all over the country, it's efficient. You don't need to travel for five to ten hours to reach the second branch. If you have proper SD-WAN technology and it's connected in a good way with good vendors, you can save a lot of time, effort, and money. You can have proper connectivity between branches as if the guy you are talking to is next door. So, SD-WAN gives a lot of benefits at the vendor level, partner level, and customer level.

Fortinet FortiGate is user-friendly and affordable.

When it comes to Secure SD-WAN, ease of use is valuable. The visibility and reporting are also valuable. A cool thing is that SD-WAN is free of charge with the Fortinet firewall. You can just use it just by using the Fortinet appliances that you already have in the branches. You cannot have appliances from different vendors. Fortinet customers can use the feature in a very easy way. It takes one click to integrate with the firewalls. It's very very easy to deploy. You don't need to build anything.

In the past, NSS Labs was utilized to test files and verify the numbers and datasheets. It would be beneficial to have an organization or testing lab that can verify the numbers in our datasheets since changes are frequently made, which can be inconvenient for review. For instance, when comparing different competitors such as Forcepoint, Palo Alto, and Check Point, the throughput or numbers in the datasheet may be lower than the actual numbers. Conversely, Fortinet typically reports very high numbers, but they cannot be replicated in the real world. Therefore, it would be advantageous for them to partner with a neutral testing organization such as NSS Labs to validate these numbers, thus providing more credibility and comfort to everyone regarding the accuracy of the datasheets.

For the migration, everyone has a firewall in use and I am selling Fortinet. Typically, I am replacing another firewall. Previously, there was a tool available to convert configurations from one firewall, such as Palo Alto, to Fortinet, but this tool is no longer free. If it could be made free again, it would be very beneficial. This tool shows a lot of promise and is very good. Making it free would help many companies deliver their products in a more efficient and integrated way. It would also be more valuable to include the tool with the firewall package or license instead of having to pay extra for it. Paying extra puts more pressure on small companies to deliver the firewall and complete the configuration, especially if they have hundreds or thousands of policies. It's very painful to move through these policies line by line.

The stability has room for improvement.

When it comes to Secure SD-WAN, everything is fine. They are going the right way. SD-WAN is very promising. They can provide the SD-WAN solution separately, but they will not take this approach because even the smallest firewall can support the features, so there is no need to have a separate service or appliance. They are following the right steps, and there is nothing to be improved. Feature-wise, I'm really satisfied with the new release, and the features they have added. For now, it's fine.

I have been using Fortinet FortiGate for seven years, and I have been using Secure SD-WAN for two years.

Secure SD-WAN is stable, but when it comes to the firewall, sometimes there are issues with the throughput and related factors. Improper handling of these can lead to a memory surge, a well-known bug that can cause the entire system to freeze. When this happens, the system appears to be running but no traffic is processed, causing disruptions to applications, users, and overall internet connectivity. This can be confusing because the firewall appears to be functioning correctly. Typically, the solution is to restart the firewall. However, when we contact support, they require logs before restarting, which can be challenging in urgent situations. As a result, we prioritize quick resolution over troubleshooting. This is a common drawback of the operating system.

I'd rate Fortinet FortiGate's scalability an eight out of ten.

While the technical support offered online and on-site is generally effective, there may be occasions when we need to escalate an issue to a higher level due to its complexity.

I initially sought assistance from level-one support, but they were unable to resolve my issue. Eventually, they informed me that the problem would be addressed in a future patch. However, within a day or two, a level three engineer intervened and provided me with an update to resolve the issue. He explained that it required a command line configuration, as it couldn't be done through the graphical user interface. I was impressed with the level-three engineer's expertise and problem-solving skills. It taught me that if we persist and communicate our needs, we can achieve our desired outcomes.

The initial setup is straightforward. We need to determine whether the firewall will be positioned in an active-standby or active-active configuration. Based on this decision, we will choose the appropriate license. If the firewall is intended for use with the Internet, we will need to include features such as a full DNS filter. However, if it's being used in a data center, these features may not be necessary. Additionally, we need to consider the speed of the interface, 1G or 10G, and the expected amount of network traffic to properly size the firewall model and ensure proper throughput. This is the initial phase of the process. Once the firewall has been deployed, it's a matter of connecting it and configuring policies.

When it comes to the deployment model of SD-WAN, my customers usually buy the appliance. They already have FortiGates, so we're just connecting firewalls to each other. In Kuwait and Egypt, there are mostly on-prem deployments. It's rare to have someone deploying a firewall on the cloud, and if it's deployed on the cloud, it's for a certain reason. It's not for SD-WAN because you're not loading balancing or you don't need SD-WAN for cloud access. In the countries where I was responsible for its implementation, there was only on-prem deployment.

There is one single challenge with the deployment of SD-WAN, but it's not from the FortiGate side. It's from the customer side. You need to understand your traffic so you can get the best out of SD-WAN. For some organizations, it's huge because they don't know which application is doing what and which is more important than the other. Especially during the COVID years, a lot of applications popped up. Companies used to release an application every few weeks. To do a proper implementation, you need to understand your network, understand your application, and set your priorities. Once you do this, the implementation will be a piece of cake. If you have all the information, it will take a day or two days.

We implement the solution for our clients. One person can easily deploy multiple Fortinet products through the firewall including FortiAnalyzer for the logs, FortiManager, and FortiMail.

For SD-WAN also, one senior security engineer can do everything for a customer. The maintenance is easy. We haven't faced any critical problems with it.

We have experienced a positive return on investment by utilizing Fortinet's products. For instance, their website features a calculator for SDR, which enables us to measure the actual ROI in dollar amounts. We input our current expenses, the products we intend to purchase, and our connectivity plans, along with a few other details. At the end of the process, we receive data that indicates the amount of money we will save, such as two hundred thousand, for example. This provides us with clear and precise figures on our savings, making it an excellent tool.

Our customers have seen time to value with Secure SD-WAN. Its time to value is seen within weeks of implementation.

The price for the Fortinet FortiGate is reasonable. Secure SD-WAN is free of charge. If you have their firewall, it's free of charge. It's very tempting. Other vendors, such as Palo Alto, will charge you to have an SD-WAN license, whereas, with Fortinet, it's free of charge.

When purchasing a firewall, stability is non-negotiable. For small to medium businesses, Fortinet's affordability and ease of deployment make it a suitable option. However, for enterprise-level businesses, Palo Alto or Check Point would be preferred for their robust clients and immediate updates, despite the higher cost.

When comparing the pros and cons of Secure SD-WAN with other solutions, the challenge is not with SD-WAN. It's with the appliance that's offering SD-WAN, which is the firewall. So, the first comparison would be between the FortiGate firewall and other firewalls, and if the other firewalls are already offering the same service, the comparison will be between different levels, not just SD-WAN. There could be other firewalls that are more efficient or lower in cost or even more familiar to customers than Fortinet. So, the challenge is not with SD-WAN. The main reason I use SD-WAN on FortiGate is to get the benefit of the security profiles or security features of the firewall on top of the SD-WAN. Otherwise, I can use my internet router, the basic load balancing protocols, and the basic IP tunneling, and send some traffic here and some traffic there, and I'll save the cost.

I'd rate Fortinet FortiGate an eight out of ten.