New Fortinet security appliance breaks firewall, VPN, price performance records for mid-enterprise segment

The new FortiGate-1240B appliance offers best-in-class 40 Gbps firewall and 16 Gbps IPSec VPN throughputs, which represent a 400- and 800-percent performance advantage, respectively, over the nearest competitor.

The FortiGate-1240B platform continues the technology excellence formula introduced on the other two members of Fortinet's mid-enterprise family - the FortiGate-310B and FortiGate-620B - by also providing the highest port density and best price/performance ratio among products in its class. The three products make up Fortinet's complete range of multi-threat security appliances for the mid-enterprise.

Fortinet is also announcing new and improved functionalities for its FortiOS 4.0 operating system with a new maintenance release (FortiOS 4.0 MR1), which powers all FortiGate devices. Among the dozens of enhancements in this new release, FortiOS 4.0 MR1 will add antivirus scanning and URL filtering for IPv6 traffic, optimized log data to reduce network storage consumption by 50%, policy-based granular endpoint control for FortiClient- capable endpoints, and enhanced data loss prevention (DLP) capabilities.

Mid-sized enterprises have the same fundamental security challenges as high-end enterprise organizations, including higher network throughput, increased port density to enable greater network segmentation, and sophisticated security control. This allows customers to segment dozens of LANs within their larger network, each with its own set of security policies and performance requirements. The combination of these attributes is integrated into a single FortiGate-1240B multi-threat security appliance, which now has even greater functionality due to the new FortiOS 4.0 MR1 enhancements.

"Our product strategy is to deliver the highest benefit that technology has to offer at the best possible performance and price, whether for networks of several hundred or several thousand. Cybercriminals target small and mid-sized enterprises just as they do the largest, so we've applied the same high-technology philosophy to our mid-enterprise products as we have our highest enterprise products, which give customers the most effective line of defense for their individual networks,"

said Michael Xie, CTO and co-founder, Fortinet.

Underscoring a Successful Strategy

Similar to the first two members of the Fortinet mid-enterprise family, the new FortiGate-1240B appliance gives customers the security, performance and flexibility that were previously only available to high-enterprise customers at a fraction of the cost. Among similar products in the high-end mid-enterprise segment, the FortiGate-1240B product shows orders of magnitude advantage in firewall/IPSec performance, achieved through high port density that is accelerated with Fortinet's newest generation of network (NP4) and content (CP6) FortiASIC processors.

Product Availability

The FortiGate-1240B and FortiOS 4.0 MR1 are both available now. Fortinet is providing FortiOS 4.0 MR1 as a no-cost upgrade to customers with valid maintenance contracts.