What is our primary use case?
We're a manufacturing shop. So we have 500-700 users on FortiGate SWG and various devices on the manufacturing floor and inside the warehouse using it. Our ERP is on-premises in the United States, so traffic from Asia to the US passes through it.
Eventually, it's going to be used throughout the enterprise. So we're using the gateways today. We have purchased two access points for wifi. Fortinet's devices all talk to each other and use the same management platform. We're planning to transition to 100 percent Fortinet gradually.
How has it helped my organization?
We adopted Fortigate to go to SD-WAN. When I looked at the market, I found Fortigate offered some of the best SD-WAN capabilities, and they're reasonably priced compared to some of their competitors.
We went to SD-WAN because we're moving to Microsoft Dynamics for finance and operations and putting our telephone system into the cloud. As we shift more and more capabilities into the cloud, we need the ability to manage and monitor everything. If we're putting our ERP into the cloud and have performance issues, I need to understand if it's a problem with the internal network, the cloud connection, or Microsoft. Fortinet can pinpoint the source of the problem, so we can work with the right people to get it resolved.
What is most valuable?
FortiGate is easy to configure. We configured one of the units and sent it to Indiana to be installed. We asked them to give us a call when they got it, so we could help them through the process, but they called us back to tell us it works great.
Non-IT people could plug it in, connect it to the fiber, and get it running without IT help. That was fantastic. Fortinet also offers a single pane of glass that we can use to manage our routers with gateways, so that's convenient. We're running a VPN to our remote location, and the performance is good. We're changing all our VPN connectors on our laptops from Cisco's Anywhere to Fortinet's VPN because the performance is just so much better.
What needs improvement?
Fortinet needs to continue to improve network traceability. Other than that, we haven't run into anything that would give me any concern. Their support team has been fantastic. One went down, and they immediately sent me a replacement. Everything that they've done has been great.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using FortiGate SWG for about six months now.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
FortiGate is highly stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I was pleased with the scalability. We have a mid-range appliance in our headquarters and entry-level devices in our remote sites. They all perform extremely well. We did never needed to purchase their largest devices to get the performance we need.
How are customer service and support?
I rate Fortinet support eight out of 10.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We switched from Cisco to Fortinet for a host of reasons, including price. It's also easier to set up and manage. Cisco requires you to understand how to configure the bare metal, which requires configuration inside the switch, but Fortinet lets you set up profiles and download them.
How was the initial setup?
I was hoping FortiGate would be more straightforward to set up than it was, but my team has been working with it for around six months. They're getting up to speed and learning to manage it on their own. I have two people on my infrastructure team working on it part-time as one of their many responsibilities.
We're still deploying it and waiting on equipment in Asia. We just got the United States up and running. It took a couple of months because we have six sites. However, we weren't actively doing things for most of that time. We did the headquarters and two other locations in the same city. Next, we set up our remote sites.
What about the implementation team?
We did have an integrator come in and help us in the original setup, but now my team is managing it. You could do it in-house, but there's a learning curve. If you're a Cisco shop moving to Fortinet, your team needs to learn Fortinet byou can to do it in-house.
Fortinet has a good training program, and you can become certified just like Cisco. You mainly need to use an outside provider so you don't have to undergo that learning curve before you can be productive. They're also going to know the tricks of the trade to do it best.
What was our ROI?
When we were using Cisco, we had a hot fiber connection and a backup in case of issues. One reason we wanted to go to SD-WAN is to be live-live. We wanted to ensure sure that we could use all our internet connections at the same time and not have anything sitting in a backup situation. It's moving traffic much better.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
FortiGate is priced reasonably. We bought a spare to have in case of issues. It was only $500 for the raw hardware and around $2,000 more annually year for the support and subscription.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We looked at four or five different vendors with SD-WAN capabilities, including Fortinet, VMware, and Cisco. We went with FortiGate because of ease of use and price.
What other advice do I have?
I rate FortiGate SWG eight out of 10. It's a solid product that's easy to install. At the end of the day, there's no reason to use a firewall without SD-WAN capabilities. It brings so many more features to the table.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
*Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.