Steelhead and Fortinet FortiGate are two popular network solutions. Fortinet FortiGate has the upper hand in features, ease of deployment, and customer service based on user reviews, despite requiring a higher investment.
Features: Steelhead users value its robust WAN optimization, application acceleration, and network performance enhancement capabilities. Fortinet FortiGate users highlight its advanced security features, including firewall, VPN, and threat protection, making it more comprehensive in security features.
Room for Improvement: Steelhead users suggest enhancements in scalability, better integration with other tools, and improved user interface. Fortinet FortiGate users point out the need for a more straightforward configuration process, better documentation, and enhanced software stability. Fortinet FortiGate has more complex configuration needs but is favored for security enhancements.
Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Steelhead is noted for its relatively straightforward deployment but has lacking customer service responsiveness. Fortinet FortiGate, while more complex to deploy, has higher user satisfaction with both deployment support and customer service, even with the complex setup process.
Pricing and ROI: Steelhead is appreciated for its lower initial setup costs but receives mixed reviews regarding its return on investment. Fortinet FortiGate requires a higher upfront investment but reports a higher ROI due to its extensive features and long-term benefits, justifying its higher price with better ROI.
The response time for a critical priority one issue was over four hours and they only responded because we threatened legal action for them violating our support contract.
They say they will respond in 24 hours, but I have received responses in a maximum of one hour, which is impressive.
The technical support from Fortinet FortiGate is 24 hours a day seven days a week, and 365 days a year.
FortiWAN supports OSPF but does not support the BGP protocol.
Fortinet VPN and DDoS capabilities are great, yet we need to provide a solution that enables CASB and integration to the cloud.
The relationship between their accounts team and my leadership team seems to be the reason for phasing out FortiGate.
The devices will usually fail way before reaching the capacity advertised in the data sheets, especially when you activate several of the features the device can handle.
The solution is working and it is still stable even across all of these devices and servers.
We have over 10,000 users behind it.
The cost of the original deployment fell below £5,000, and licenses are priced at around £3,000.
Every time you upgrade your license, you also get insurance for the equipment.
Overall, FortiGate is affordable.
All of these issues were resolved in v5.2.
Stability has dramatically improved over the previous main version branch of FortiOS; 5.2.x and 5.4.x are stable enough for critical environments.
Overall, the devices have been very stable.
The two most valuable features are VPN and firewalling.
WiFi network for visitors isolated from our corporate WiFi network using only one unit
Allows for firewall rules to be programmed and named in a way that makes it 'readable'
Fortinet FortiGate offers comprehensive network security and firewall protection across multiple locations. It effectively manages data traffic and secures environments with features like VPN, intrusion prevention, and UTM controls.
Organizations rely on Fortinet FortiGate for its robust integration with advanced security policies, ensuring significant protection for enterprises, cloud environments, and educational sectors. It facilitates network segmentation, application-level security, and authentication management, securing communication within and between locations such as branches and data centers. Its efficient SD-WAN and UTM features enable streamlined data management and enhanced threat protection capabilities. Users appreciate its centralized management, facilitating seamless operations across diverse environments.
What are the key features of Fortinet FortiGate?Fortinet FortiGate is crucial in sectors like education, offering robust networks for secure data flow between campuses and facilitating remote learning. In enterprise environments, it allows efficient management of application traffic and security across multiple branches, while in the cloud, it seamlessly integrates with diverse platforms to enhance security infrastructure.
Steelhead is the leading network optimization and application performance solution chosen by over 30,000 organizations worldwide. The performance of networks and applications directly impacts business productivity. Riverbed draws from nearly two decades of experience in driving network and application performance over Wide Area Networks with its flagship offering, SteelHead. SteelHead delivers the underlying technology that helps enterprises of all sizes maximize the efficiency and performance of the networks and applications used to run modern business.
SteelHead is proven to dramatically speed up the performance of applications anywhere in the organization while delivering the best end-user experience even under sub optimal network conditions. Reduce bandwidth utilization by up to 95%, deferring costly network bandwidth upgrades. Increase performance by up to 100x for on-premises applications.
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