Fortinet aims latest VPN boxes at the carrier market

Fortinet is heading into the service provider market with the release of two hardware platforms that support network-based VPN services as well as provide firewalling and virus protection.

As part of the new Fortigate 5000 family, the company is announcing two carrier products, the Fortigate 5050 and the Fortigate 5140. A third box, the 5020, is aimed at both service providers and corporations.

The latest gear features high-capacity firewall capabilities with the five-slot 5050 chassis supporting a total of 20G bit/sec of firewall protection and 3G bit/sec of IPSec VPN. The 14-slot 5140 chassis supports up to 56G bit/sec firewalling and 8.4G bit/sec VPN.

These devices also support virus scanning, intrusion detection and prevention, spam filtering, URL filtering and bandwidth shaping.

The 5020 chassis has two slots and supports 8G-bit/sec firewalling and 1.2G bit/sec VPN, suitable for protecting a corporate data center.

These devices all share new hardware modules. The 5001 Security Module sports eight Gigabit Ethernet ports with two Gigabit Ethernet backplane ports that support high availability either for load-sharing or for failover. The 5003 switch module provides communication among blades either in the same chassis or between chassis. These modules are for the 5050 and 5140, and each chassis can take two for redundancy.

The new products are based on Advanced Telecom Computing Architecture, which specifies standards for computing equipment that is used in telecommunications networks, making it easier for carriers to train technical staff to maintain the gear.

The FortiGate 5020 and 5050 are available now. The 5020 ranges in price from $44,000 to $80,000 depending on the number of cards. The FortiGate 5050 ranges in price from $55,000 to $200,000. The 5140 is available in the fourth quarter and costs $65,000 to $300,000.