Fortinet Boosts Perimeter Defense

Fortinet continues to build up the speed and performance of its enterprise-focused unified threat management offerings to give companies a way to better secure their network perimeter.

Fortinet is launching the FortiGate 3600A, a stand-alone UTM appliance that features a 50 percent boost in firewall throughput and a 25 percent increase in antivirus processing speed, said Chris Simmons, senior product marketing manager at the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based vendor.

With the FortiGate 3600A, the vendor has raised firewall performance to 6 Gbps, compared with 10 Gbps for its blade server products, Simmons said. The performance enhancements are enabled by advancements in Fortinet's proprietary ASIC content processing chips, which inspect packets and handle VPN acceleration, Simmons noted. "This speeds up the inspection process devices go through when looking at network traffic," he said.

Another key feature of the 3600A is its ability to accommodate WANs and improve enterprise perimeter defense. The 3600A includes two Advanced Mezzanine Card (AMC) slots that allow add-on modules, and LAN and WAN interfaces also are expected to be available, Simmons said.

The 3600A is a high-margin product that's ideal for VARs looking to offer managed services, Simmons said. "The increased performance improves the speed and reliability for offering multiple security functions to a large customer base," he said.

Jim Wallworth, president of Apollo Information Systems, Los Gatos, Calif., said the throughput enhancements and ASIC architecture will benefit midsize enterprises. The 3600A also will create services opportunities for channel partners, including firewall infrastructure overhauls, security and vulnerability assessments, penetration testing, and remediation and implementation, Wallworth said.

The appliance also comes with eight copper Gigabit ports, two accelerated ports for speedier firewall performance, and dual hot-swappable power supplies, according to Simmons.

The 3600A is available now and carries a price tag of $32,995.