Fortinet FortiSwitch - Data Center Reviews

In relation to my company, the solution is installed in Costa Rica and Venezuela. I work with Fortinet FortiSwitch in my company's data center.

I like Fortinet FortiSwitch, and I work with it since I also work with FortiGate. I like the functionalities provided by Fortinet FortiSwitch, making it a complete product for me.

In Fortinet FortiSwitch, the routing aspect lacks the required security. Routing is an area in Fortinet FortiSwitch with certain shortcomings where improvements are needed.

I have been using Fortinet FortiSwitch - Data Center for seven years. My company has a partnership and is a reseller of the product.

I like the solution's technical support. I rate the technical support a ten out of ten.

Positive

I have experience with FortiAnalyzer and FortiGate. Specifically, I have experience with FortiGate Cloud-Native Firewall.

I rate the overall tool a ten out of ten.

The tool is not easy to use. 

I have been working with the product for a year. 

The product is stable. 

Fortinet FortiSwitch - Data Center is scalable. My company has 40-50 users for the product. 

Fortinet FortiSwitch - Data Center's installation is straightforward. 

The tool's deployment was done in-house. 

Fortinet FortiSwitch - Data Center is expensive. 

I rate the solution a seven out of ten. 

On-premises

The product's most valuable feature is its ability to manage switches from one central point.

There could be more porting software options for easy deployment in the product.

It is a stable product.

I rate Fortinet FortiSwitch - Data Center's scalability a nine out of ten.

The technical support team provides services for both pre and post-implementation phases.

Positive

The initial setup process is easy.

The product is less expensive than Cisco.

I rate Fortinet FortiSwitch - Data Center a nine out of ten.

Based on my use cases, Fortinet FortiSwitch - Data Center was a great product that was easy to manage and work with while being a powerful tool.

Identifying devices and managing VLAN routing are areas where the solution has improved the functioning of my organization. It was easy to work in the aforementioned areas.

The solution's valuable feature was to have the possibility to manage it with a central point which means that from FortiGate, it was really easy to manage with FortiSwitch management.

Managing the VLANs is an area where the solution lacks and needs to improve.

Fortinet FortiSwitch - Data Center is a complete product with everything. It would be good if the solution could be easier for its users to manage.

I have been using Fortinet FortiSwitch - Data Center for a year. I use the solution's latest version.

The solution's stability is awesome. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.

Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.

The solution's technical support can be described as a complete one. The solution has a lot of documentation, and it is really easy to go through it.

The solution is deployed on-premises.

The solution's initial setup was pretty straightforward.

I have experienced an ROI using the solution.

The solution's pricing is a little high. The solution deserves the current price it receives from its users.

I would suggest others take time to learn the product before using it, and it can help a lot of people. You can know your product if you take the time to learn and read.

Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

On-premises

The FortiSwitches together with FortiGate give users more visibility into the network. It also offers up straight intelligence when paired with FortiGate when it's connected through the security fabric, which helps improve security. For example, if you've got your FortiSwitches in place, you can actually control FortiSwitch using FortiGate.

The solution has the switch controller built into FortiGate, which is a bonus. From there you are able to see, for example, the number of switches that you actually have. You have logical topology of the switches that are interconnected into your environment. From that logical topology, you're able to drill down into each switch and see what devices are connected to what, within which port. Together with Fortinet in the security fabric with Forticlient, you'll be able to see the clients that are of high risk within the network.

If you've got a server that has got a vulnerable application, that information can be shared through the switch. It also has the functionality whereby if one machine within the network tries to send infected information or is infected itself, it will result in traffic being blocked. That way, the spreading of viruses is drastically reduced.

The solution has made configuration and setup very, very easy.

In terms of usability, they give us very good visibility.

The device, when using it with FortiGate, is seamless.

The Solution is robust as it is currently but there is room to added more automated responses on the fortigate such that if vulnerability is picked by the forticlient it can auto-remediate example is that when Forticlient picks that a software on an endpoint is not patched you will have manually allow forticlient to patch it but in future if this can be automated for the fortigate or forticlient to automatically patch such vulnerability it will be of great help to keep the network secure all times.

In terms of stability, the switches are very stable. We haven't had any issues since we started deploying them.

In terms of scalability, I think it's very scalable. If implemented properly, in most cases, it's all about the number of ports that you've got and the speed that you expect from them.

We've been in touch with Fortinet's technical support. We haven't been in touch in terms of the deployment of the switches, but, in general, I'd rate them nine out of ten. Most of the time, when we work with them, they find a solution to our issues. On very rare occasions, when we open a ticket, there may be a slight delay in response, which is why I didn't give them a full ten out of ten. However, we've found them to be very good and very reliable.

FortiSwitch implementation is quite straightforward and very simple, unlike other products. It's easy in part because we already have FortiGate in our environment and the integration is seamless. It's just a matter of enabling FortiSwitch. It's like dedicating an interface on FortiGate. You simply dedicate that FortiGate interface for FortiSwitches and FortiSwitch will automatically connect to FortiGate.

Instantly, you've got visibility to that switch, which you can manage everything through FortiGate. 

You can also use FortiGate as a standalone unit. However, we mostly work with FortiSwitch through FortiGate. The beauty of that is that you don't have to log in to several switches if you've got FortiGate to manage them. You can simply manage them from one interface through FortiGate.

We use FortiSwitch together with the FortiGate. So there wasn't any licensing that was required on our unit.

We partnered with a company called Maxtech, which has a direct partnership with Fortinet.

The integration that Fortinet has is what we call Forti security fabric. When you've got your FortiGate and you've got your FortiSwitches, this device communicates that intelligence. To add to that, you can get Forticlient. Forticlient is responsible for sharing information about the vulnerabilities on any particular machine. If there is any vulnerability, that information is shared with FortiGate. You don't really have to guess which devices are connected to your network and what they're doing on the network. 

The security fabric of Fortinet is really a game-changer for us. When you have your switches in that security fabric, the solution is quite good.

Overall, I'd rate the solution eight out of ten. We had a slight issue with the device when it was working as a standalone product in an environment where there wasn't any FortiGate in place. In this case, half the time most of the clients would say they wouldn't really benefit much in terms of visibility unless when they logged in. However, when it's incorporated with FortiGate, I'd easily rate it a full 10 out of 10.

We implement it for our customers and do the installation. 

Configurations between FortiGate and FortiSwitch have to link to each other as "FortiLink". We need configuration. The configuration is not like a Cisco switch. It has a unique configuration. 

FortiSwitch should improve the FortiGate map. The diagram cannot move, automatically to show the switch. The map does not map the physical location. It cannot move the diagram.

2 yeas

If the customer uses a certain function, the customer can change the configuration from FortiGate. They can unify their network to drive only on FortiGate. We can reduce the cost of the operation network. That function is very scalable and cheap.

The technical support depends on the technician's expertise. We can't choose any person in the technical support center. Sometimes they're not good. Sometimes they are good. They're almost always very good. 

The initial setup is not very difficult. The manufacturer has a lot of documentation about the product in their documentation website. We do all of the configurations from the documentation that is available. It's not difficult.

I would recommend this solution. It's suitable. If you use FortiGate you should use FortiSwitch. It's very helpful. It has a good configuration. I would recommend it. If you use Fortigate you should replace a Cisco switch to FortiSwitch. FortiSwitch should not be used as a legacy switch(standalone mode).
If we use it as a standalone mode, we can't use it in an SDN function. FortiGate should look at the whole packet in the network. 

I would rate it a nine out of ten. Not a ten because we cannot use it as a layer 3 switch when we use it as the standalone mode. because sometimes the customer wants to replace the layer 3 switch.

We can use the standalone normal FortiSwitch as Layer 3 Switch but if we want to use the SDN function, we have to use it as managed Layer 2 FortiSwitch.

but there is counter measure.

We recommend to proposal to choose more high-end model FortiGate.

so Fortigate can controll routing on behalf Layer 3 switch.

On-premises

A valuable feature of FortiGate is its management integrity. FortiSwitch has two modes, one standalone and the other managed. The standalone mode cannot be managed from FortiGate, although the managed mode allows one to manage FortiSwitch from FortiGate. This includes the making or assigning of virtual LAN, interfacing, enabling and disabling and patching of upgrades. This can be done from FortiGate to every other FortiSwitch. 

It would be great were FortiGate to allow for the management of many switches, such as 50 or 60 FortiSwitches. The managed display is very low. It takes a long time for the view to become visible, two or three minutes, perhaps. This is irritating. When there are many switches being used, the speed declines noticeably. 

When it comes to stability and use of the managed feature, FortiSwitch does not consume many resources, such as CPU and memory. Yet, occasionally, we cannot understand the managed feature of the FortiLink platform. Stability is not really the issue. Troubleshooting is.

While the installation process is not complicated, the need to do regional configuration of FortiSwitch can be a bit on the tricky side. 

We have a singular project on the FortiSwitch and this solution does not have many features when it comes to modular installation. One can move from one port to another on the same switch. Since the FortiSwitches do not move, this resulted in a person being unable to move his personal configuration from the same switches. This is a very important feature which our customers require, as they need to have switching abilities, such as in the event that they will move to the conference room. FortiSwitches now offers this important feature. 

As Fortinet FortiSwitch - Data Center is a very young product, we have been distributing it for two or three years. 

Stability is not an issue, although troubleshooting can present a challenge. 

FortiSwitch makes it easy to deal with many switches. It allows a person to install all of the switches on a single special FortiGate button. When it comes to the configuration of one's network, this is important, since it spares a person from the need to individually integrate each switch in the event that there are many involved. 

Overall, Fortinet has good support, although this can vary depending on the engineer involved. 

While the FortiSwitch setup process is not very involved, the need to do regional configuration can be a tricky issue. There is a learning process. 

I rate Fortinet FortiSwitch - Data Center as a nine out of ten. 

The product is used mostly as an integration within Fortinet Security Fabric. It is a combination of security and switching.

The single pane of glass that helps us manage everything through FortiManager is the most important feature.

The product must improve the latency in the management center. We experience latency when we make changes on a number of ports.

I have been using the solution for 12 years.

I rate the product’s stability an eight out of ten.

I rate the tool’s scalability an eight out of ten. Around 15,000 people are using the solution in our clients’ organizations. Our customers are enterprise-level businesses.

I rate the ease of setup a seven out of ten. When we were installing the solution for the very first time, we had to introduce a bug to ensure everything was working. We encountered some issues. We did overcome those issues in the end, but it took some time.

I rate the solution’s pricing a three on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive. There are no additional costs associated with the product.

I'm not a technical person. I have a high-level overview of the architecture. People considering the solution must create a benchmark with different solutions. We get a broader picture by integrating it into Fortinet Security Fabric and managing it through FortiManager as a central hub. Overall, I rate the tool an eight out of ten.