Cybersecurity firm Fortinet has launched new secure SD-WAN offerings, including SD-WAN ASIC that it says will enable organizations to implement security-driven networking. The company said that as organisations adopt SD-WAN for faster and more cost-effective connectivity, security remains their top challenge. According to Gartner report, “72% of the respondents said that security was their topmost concern when it comes to their WAN.”
“The WAN edge is now a part of digital attack surfaces, but the edge of your network must never be a bottleneck. For branch offices, the ability to provide best-of-breed WAN Edge – including SD-WAN, WAN optimization, security and orchestration – with optimal performance and security is critical to enable the digital experience. Fortinet's SoC4 SD-WAN ASIC allows organizations to realize security-driven networking whether they have 100 or 10,000 branch offices,” said Rajesh Maurya, Regional Vice President, India & SAARC, Fortinet.
SaaS and multi-cloud application usage is increasing and with it the need to make the WAN Edge “application aware.” In response, Fortinet is introducing the industry's first SoC4 SD-WAN ASIC, which delivers the industry's fastest application identification and steering for more than 5,000 applications. This allows users to avoid delays in accessing their applications and accelerates overlay performance, providing low latency and the best possible user experience for business-critical applications, said the company.
Also announced, FortiGate 100F Next-Generation Firewall powered by the new SoC4 SD-WAN ASIC combines SD-WAN functionalities with advanced security into one single offering. FortiGate 100F delivers 10 times faster performance when compared with competitors. It also comes with integrated 10G interfaces to accommodate for future expansion without needing another device.
Organizations are transitioning from MPLS to broadband in order to achieve higher bandwidth requirements with lower WAN cost, but this shift often degrades the quality of experience for unified communication applications. New SD-WAN features within FortiOS 6.2 allow customers to leverage new WAN Link remediation to handle even the most volatile WAN connections and deliver superior application performance for unified communication. New SD-WAN features also allow customers to measure WAN bandwidth on-demand and can aggregate overlay bandwidth for packet-based steering to ensure the end user receives the best possible user experience and application performance at all times.
Many customers are currently forced to use multiple point products and management consoles to achieve a WAN Edge. In response, Fortinet is announcing new Fortinet 360 Protection Services to offer SD-WAN management and orchestration to simplify even the most complex deployments. The Fortinet 360 Protection Services include overlay controller orchestration to simplify VPN deployment at-scale through a single-pane-of-glass for improved management. Additionally, Fortinet's FortiManager is now available in all environments, including on-premises and multi-cloud, to provide centralized management for the WAN Edge.
To simplify WAN Edge operations, Fortinet said it continues to expand deeper integration between SD-WAN and the branch access layer. Fortinet's new SoC4 SD-WAN ASIC accelerates security extension throughout WAN Edge, access points and switches to enable SD-Branch transformation.
Fortinet has been providing best-of-breed SD-WAN and security through its FortiGate Secure SD-WAN solution, which has seen tremendous momentum in customer adoption and is the only solution with security capabilities to receive an SD-WAN “Recommended” rating in the first NSS Labs test report. With today's introduction of the industry's first SoC4 SD-WAN ASIC, customers can realize a fully connected branch edge powered by security-driven networking, whether they have 100 or 10,000 branch offices. Fortinet's SD-WAN ASIC will power the new FortiGate 100F, which offers the best price/performance for WAN edge deployments. To further alleviate the burden that limited IT staff face, the new Fortinet 360 Protection Services and SD-WAN features within FortiOS 6.2 provide the best possible experience for unified communication applications with simplified orchestration.
“Volkswagen Groupe Retail France selected Fortinet's Secure SD-WAN solution enabled by its FortiGate NGFW because we were looking to simplify our operations while maintaining complete visibility, easy management and advanced security. We were able to achieve all this and more with one single offering through Fortinet's SD-WAN solution, allowing us to adopt a hybrid WAN that helps us connect geographically distributed WANs and route traffic over a variety of links, including MPLS, without fear of performance degradation. The solution has empowered our IT team to confidently differentiate between types of traffic across our WAN, making it possible to manage latency and prioritize business-critical applications and traffic,” said Alexandre Sacher, CIO at Volkswagen Groupe Retail France.
