Fortinet's New “System-on-a-Chip” Architecture Delivers up to 1 Gbps Firewall Performance

New FortiGate-60C multi-threat security appliances uses new architecture to deliver high performance, storage expansion, and 3G connectivity

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Fortinet has begun shipping the FortiGate-60C and FortiWifi-60C, new multi-threat security appliances designed for small branch offices of distributed enterprises, SOHOs, and small businesses. The appliances deliver enterprise-grade security performance and delivering a tenfold increase in firewall throughput over previous models. They include the full version of FortiOS 4.0 MR2 firmware.

These unified threat management devices feature a secure digital high-capacity (SDHC) card slot for storage expansion, 3G network connectivity, local logging and reporting, WAN optimization, and simplified set-up through its USB interface.

The FortiGate-60C appliances’ high performance is enabled by Fortinet’s System-on-a-Chip (SOC) architecture, which combines a traditional system CPU with Fortinet’s proprietary FortiASIC content and network processors. As a result, the appliance delivers more efficient content inspection processing and 1 Gbps of firewall inspection performance.

To maximize deployment flexibility, the FortiGate-60C and FortiWifi-60C incorporate a SDHC card slot and ExpressCard slot for 3G wireless communications. The appliances include 4GB of SDHC storage for event logging. The ExpressCard slot supports a 3G wireless card for secure mobile deployments or redundant WAN connections to ensure data availability. In addition, like other FortiGate appliances, the FortiGate-60C can be remotely managed by the FortiManager and FortiAnalyzer platforms. The FortiGate-60C and FortiWifi-60C also simplify initial set-up and ongoing configuration using their USB interface and embedded FortiExplorer set-up software. The FortiExplorer wizard automatically launches when the appliance is connected to a Microsoft Windows PC and allows basic configuration to deploy devices onto the network or make configuration changes.

The new FortiGate-60C and FortiWifi-60C appliances are ideally suited to enterprise branch or small office deployments in a variety of industries. The enterprise-grade, multi-threat protection the appliances provide is comparable to higher-end FortiGate appliances that are designed for large enterprise and carrier environments. Both provide a broad array of security services enabled by the FortiOS 4.0 MR2 operating system. In addition to functioning as a dedicated enterprise-class firewall with tightly integrated IPS and complete content protection (CCP), the appliances can be deployed with any combination of IPSec/SSL VPN, antivirus/anti-malware, Web filtering, anti-spam, data loss prevention, and voice security services, all determined by the customer for maximum deployment flexibility.

The FortiGate-60C and FortiWifi-60C can enforce rigorous and granular security policies down to the application level, independent of port or protocol. This is made possible by integrating content-aware security technologies into the firewall to identify threats.

More information is available at www.fortinet.com.

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