Fortinet unveils SD-WAN Appliance with flexible deployment options for SMB

Fortinet has announced the FortiGate 40F, a new Secure SD-WAN appliance powered by Fortinet’s patented SoC4 SD-WAN ASIC for small and midsize businesses.FortiGate 40F is the most affordable Secure SD-WAN appliance on the market and features the smallest form factor of all FortiGate appliances, with options for built-in LTE or built-in WiFi to enable a wide range of organizations to deploy Fortinet Secure SD-WAN.

Addressing the Unique SD-WAN Needs of SMBs

Small and midsize enterprises are adopting SD-WAN solutions to realize consistent user experience and simplify operations, but face a unique set of challenges and limitations when it comes to their SD-WAN deployments. Gartner notes, “These enterprises rely on a variety of business applications, with an increasing reliance on SaaS applications and a smaller branch footprint. A growing percentage show interest in migrating to internet-only services as their primary WAN transport.”

To address the unique needs of small and midsize businesses, Fortinet is expanding its family of SoC4 SD-WAN ASIC-powered FortiGate SD-WAN appliances by introducing the FortiGate 40F – the most affordable Secure SD-WAN appliance on the market today – now available in three different versions:

·         FortiGate 40F for out-of-the-box deployment within minutes: For large distributed organizations with small footprint locations and limited IT staff, FortiGate 40F enables out-of-the-box deployment of integrated security and SD-WAN within minutes at-scale.As with all FortiGate models, FortiGate 40F enables better visibility and user experience for SaaS applications such as Office 365.

·         FortiGate 40F with LTE for reliable connectivity anywhere: For mobile or remote locations where an outage will significantly impact the business, FortiGate 40F is available with built-in LTE to provide an additional WAN connectivity option to ensure service continuity and failover flexibility.

·         FortiGate 40C with WiFifor Secure SD-Branch from a single appliance: For locations with limited space, FortiGate 40F is available with a built-in wireless access point to extend the benefits of SD-WAN to the LAN and wireless LAN.

In addition to addressing key use cases for small and midsize businesses, FortiGate 40F gives larger enterprises in need of a diverse range of deployment configurations an additional Secure SD-WAN appliance option.

Enabling “Do-it-yourself” SD-WAN Deployments

FortiGate Secure SD-WAN appliances are managed by Fortinet’s Fabric Management Center to enable centralized management and analytics of an organization’s Secure SD-WAN deployment. Small and midsize businesses with limited IT staff and resources that are planning a do-it-yourself installation of Fortinet Secure SD-WAN benefit from zero-touch deployment and configuration. Similarly, distributed enterprises can save time and simplify deployment at branch locations by replicating proven configurations and business policies, reducing deployment time todays instead of months.

The SoC4 SD-WAN ASIC Advantage for High Security Compute Ratings

As with all FortiGate models, the 40F consolidates next-generation firewall security, SD-WAN, and advanced routingin a single appliance. Continuing Fortinet’s commitment to delivering products that enable the industry’s best performing Secure SD-WAN, 40F marks the third FortiGate appliance to include its patented SoC4 SD-WAN ASIC. First introduced with the FortiGate 100F and later extended to FortiGate 60F, Fortinet’s purpose-built SD-WAN ASIC radically increases the performance, scalability, and value of Fortinet Secure SD-WAN while greatly improving user experience and shrinking space and powerrequirements. Security Compute Rating is a benchmark that compares the performance of Fortinet’s purpose-built ASIC-based SD-WAN appliance to other vendors in the same price range that utilize generic CPUs for networking and security capabilities.

Fortinet Delivers Secure SD-WAN for Organizations of Any Size

Fortinet received the highest score for the “Security-Sensitive WAN” use case and scored the third highest for the “Small/Midsize Enterprise/Regional WAN” and “Small Footprint Retail WAN” use cases in the November 2019 Gartner analyst research report, “Critical Capabilities for WAN Edge Infrastructure.” Fortinet believes these results further highlight its focus on Secure SD-WAN innovation and its ability to meet a diverse range of SD-WAN use cases for organizations of any size.

Rajesh Maurya, Regional Vice President, India & SAARC at Fortinet, says, “Fortinet delivers the most comprehensive SD-WAN solution on the market with over 21,000 global customers across all enterprise sizes and segments. With today’s addition of FortiGate 40F, we are continuing to deliver flexibility for SD-WAN deployments and enabling small and midsize businesses to realize consistent user experience and simplified operations with Fortinet Secure SD-WAN.”