Fortinet unveils 3 gigabit security appliance

A new carrier-class gateway product from Fortinet will contain a firewall with 3G bit/sec throughput in addition to content filtering, VPN, intrusion detection, and traffic shaping features, according to the company.

The product, called the FortiGate 3000 Network Protection Gateway (NPG), is available now and sells for around $20,000, competing with existing hardware-based security products such as those from Netscreen Technologies, SonicWall, and Symantec.

The FortiGate 3000 adds another high-end product to Fortinet’s line of all-in-one security appliances which include the FortiGate 2000 NPG, a 2G bit/sec security gateway also for the service provider market, in addition to products targeted at the enterprise and home office markets.

Like Fortinet’s other products, the FortiGate 3000 NPG is a firmware-based appliance that contains the company’s proprietary FortiASIC chip. That specialized chip allows the new product to perform virus scanning, intrusion detection, and data encryption and decryption at high speeds. The FortiGate 3000 NPG is capable of 300M bit/sec of VPN throughput, according to Richard Kagan, vice president of marketing at Fortinet.

The 3000 contains three 1G bit./sec ports and three 10/100 Ethernet ports.

Like the 2000 model, the 3000 is a two-CPU, rack-mountable unit that comes with redundant power supplies and a 20 G-byte hard drive that stores logged information, alerts, and device configuration information. Also like the 2000, the 3000 offers multizone configurations in which ports are grouped and assigned to manage specific security and content filtering policies

For antivirus protection, the company provides its own database of virus signatures and intrusion detection rules which can be downloaded at any time from distribution servers located in Europe, North America, and Asia. The company maintains its own worldwide threat management team, according to Kagan.

With its relatively small price tag, the FortiGate 3000 might find buyers even in the depressed service provider market, according to Kagan.

“We have a lot to offer the service provider market. Unlike other solutions where the service provider has to buy lots of big iron, we can offer managed security in the hundreds of dollars per locations,” Kagan said.

Asked how the company will compete with more established players that are also offering hardware-based security appliances, Kagan says that the company’s ground-up, security focused solutions and proprietary chip give Fortinet an edge even against large hardware vendors.

“Were going to take the Gigabit premium away,” Kagan said. “Scale of operations won’t account for five year-old versus new architecture. We’re not trying to backfill applications into standard hardware.”

Fortinet currently sells over half of its products outside the U.S. and has strong sales in Asia. The company is currently working on partnerships with resellers in the U.S., according to Kagan.