Fortinet offers multiple security zones

After a making a flood of products releases at NetWorld+Interop Las Vegas 2002, Fortinet is adding another device to its security appliances range - a firewall and VPN protection box.

Called the FortiGate 500, the latest device offers multiple security zones, so customers can set different security policies for different sets of users. These policies will be enforced separately and cut the risk of users accessing the corporate resources they are not authorized to see. The zones keep traffic from these user groups physically separate on the appliance.

So, for instance, a business could segment their networks department by department or based on corporate employees vs. users from a trusted business partner.

This type of traffic segmentation has been introduced by other vendors such as NetScreen and SonicWall.

FortiGate 500 comes with 12 10/100 Ethernet ports that segment the zones. Users can create 12 zones or group several of the ports to create fewer zones with more bandwidth.

The one-unit high, rack-mountable box can handle 3,000 IP Security tunnels, and perform Triple-DES encryption at 100M bit/sec and AES encryption at 200M bit/sec. Its top firewalling speed is 500M bit/sec.

Processing for the security functions is handled by customer chips called FortiASIC CP-1.

FortiGate 500 joins six other FortiGate models that bundle firewall and VPN protection with virus scanning and content filtering, intrusion detection and traffic shaping.

The other products are the FG50, FG100, FG200, FG300, FG 400 and FG2000, and range in price from about $700 to $40,000. They are intended for sites that range in size from home offices to enterprise data centers.

The FG500 costs $10,000 and is available now.

Tim Greene is a senior editor at Network World, covering virtual private networking gear, remote access, core switching and local phone companies. You can reach him at tgreene@nww.com.

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