Fortinet FortiSwitch - Secure Access Reviews

My son owns three healthcare facilities, and two of them are in the same building. That's why I went to VLANs to separate the data to satisfy HIPAA requirements. The other facility is in another town. I'm using them to manage the data and communication through VoIP phones in both locations.

They have a server for the whole practice, and so everybody in the building is operating off that server. When they go to the other facility, they use a VPN and connect to the same server.

It works really well, I think the equipment is solid, and the help is great. When I buy equipment, even though I'm buying a service in addition to the equipment to have them help me, it's worth paying for that. The service is amazing, and their marketing department should promote it.

I can tell you from personal experience, while the interface is clear for somebody in the IT business, it really isn't clear for a novice. It would also help if they lowered the cost of their service.

Their terminology could be better. The terminology is all IT. It's an IT dictionary, and I believe that there has to be a way to state things in clear, plain old English, and I would like to see more of that.

I have been using Fortinet FortiSwitch - Secure Access for about five months.

I would say that it's fantastic. Once you get the handle of how FortiGate is designed, their interface, how they think, that's the part that's scalable. When I shift from the 60 up to something far more sophisticated and faster, I don't have to go through a horrific learning experience. In other words, it's an easy shift, and I think that's the part that's useful. I'm counting on that as this business grows.

I would say I get extraordinary service from FortiGate. If I call them up and say, "help," they not only make it happen, but they educate me to the best of their ability and the best of my ability to absorb.

It isn't so much the hardware that I appreciate at this point. It's the service. Amazing service. You have to understand that you're going to get people from Bangladesh, India, and around Asia. You're going to get people helping you on the phone that are from far away, but they really know their stuff, and it's worth the struggle to work through the language barrier. 

Because I'm sure some people will complain about that, but first of all you have to realize you're there to solve a technical problem, so forget all the other stuff. If you can't understand them, you got to stop them and say, "go slowly, speak more clearly." If you can find different words, you have to work the language gap. If you're willing to do that, the payoff is immense. I found that these people who are serving me from these faraway places really know their stuff. I'm willing to pay whatever price for their service. 

The initial setup is very straight forward. I didn't really know anything, I just set it up, and it ran. It didn't run as a firewall, and it didn't run as an L3 mode, but it ran.

The implementation and deployment were phased. The first phase was a few minutes. But the reality was that it took about two months, not because of the hardware, but because of issues like my ISP, which is Comcast.

You can't get a static IP from them without using their cable modem. But I learned that you have to put it in pass-through mode and stick your firewall router right behind it, and you're all set. But all that for a novice like myself takes time to understand. 

I implemented Fortinet FortiSwitch - Secure Access by myself. 

Fortinet FortiSwitch - Secure Access isn't cheap. They're about $1000 each or something like that. I had to pay for all these licenses. I paid for them, having no idea what they were going to do, but I got enough of a sense that they were important. 

I have to pay for it annually or yearly. You can buy this equipment in a multitude of ways. You can buy just the hardware, or you can buy the hardware and the licenses. That's how I bought it, but you don't get a discount for that. 

I think the license costs me anywhere between $100 and $300. I can't really remember, but it wasn't so much money that it made me stop and think twice. 

I researched brands from Cisco all the way down, and there were some cheaper options than FortiGate. I think I kept on reading reviews that mentioned something about the interface being easy to use. That eventually sold me on FortiGate. 

I really hated how Cisco wasn't clear what their costs were. I'm sure they're technically very competent because the technical papers that come out of Cisco are really great, but in terms of selling, it's almost deceptive, but not FortiGate.

On a scale from one to ten, I would give Fortinet FortiSwitch - Secure Access a nine.

They don't get a 10 because I think there's a way to work around terminology.

We use Fortinet FortiSwitch - Secure Access to test and give access. 

The tool's VLAN feature is easy to understand. It was very good. 

We had experienced downtime. I would like to see it to be improved. 

I have been working with the product for two to three years. 

Fortinet FortiSwitch - Secure Access is scalable. 

We chose the product because we worked with Fortinet's firewalls and switches and wanted to explore it hands-on. 

Fortinet FortiSwitch - Secure Access' deployment is neither easy nor difficult. It is a normal process and can be completed in two to three hours. 

The product's pricing is good. 

I rate the solution a ten out of ten. 

The tool provides a firewall and good performance.

The solution could provide an active VPN.

I have been using Fortinet FortiSwitch - Secure Access for around two months.

Fortinet provides high quality at a reasonable price whereas Cisco is expensive.

The initial setup takes two years of support.

We have support from a local company.

The solution has reasonable pricing. The firewall costs around 500$ annually.

I recommend the solution.

Overall, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.

We are using FortiSwitch as a gateway for our FortiGate firewalls. 

We needed a large PoE switch to connect to the firewall. FortiSwitch is robust and cheaper than Cisco switches. 

We haven't had any problems with FortiSwitch. 

We have used FortiSwitch for three years.

I wouldn't say that FortiSwitch is stable because we've had situations when we lost ports, and I don't know what IP address to switch to or which environment has the lost ports. A storm knocked out the power to the devices, and every attempt to troubleshoot the in-line power didn't work. I think this also happens with Cisco switches. 

FortiSwitch is scalable. You add switches to scale it up. It isn't difficult. 

I rate Fortinet support 10 out of 10. Their support is excellent and inexpensive. They respond immediately. 

Positive

Like most switches, FortiSwitch is plug-and-play. You don't need to do much configuration. You only need to connect it and put in an IP address. It doesn't take long, and one person can do the job alone. FortiSwitch requires periodic firmware updates. It can be a little difficult because the switches aren't connected to the internet, so you cannot upgrade the firmware remotely. You need to go to the site and do it manually because it's a closed network. 

We pay for a one-time cost for the hardware, but there isn't a license. We only pay for configuration and support. We need to periodically buy new switches and upgrade them. 

It's feasible to use FortiGate with Cisco switches, but it was simpler to buy everything from Fortinet. Cisco and Fortinet switches are both good, but FortiSwitch is cheaper. The Cisco hardware isn't too expensive, but we have to pay for ongoing support. For example, the switch might be 2,000 pounds, but you need to pay an additional 600 pounds for support. Cisco support is excellent but expensive. We end up paying a lot for things we don't need. 

I rate Fortinet FortiSwitch Secure Access six out of 10. I recommend different solutions depending on the use case. If a customer is using FortiGate firewalls, I would suggest FortiSwitch.

Usually, our customers have security devices for the network. We always suggest Fortinet to them, and depending on the number of users, we suggest different versions. If it's a new setup, then we provide FortiAP and FortiSwitch.

We don't need a controller to control the access points. The solution is very simple, and it's very easily available. It has simple configurations and is easy to use. It is easy to set it up.

The product must improve its prices.

I have been using the solution for three and a half years.

The solution’s stability is great. Since Fortinet is a security product, any Fortinet device is secured well. I rate the stability an eight out of ten.

The tool is very scalable. I rate the scalability an eight out of ten. Our customers are SMBs.

Technical support is perfect. The technical team is good.

Positive

The initial setup is very easy and straightforward. It takes around half an hour to deploy the solution.

I rate the pricing a seven out of ten on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive.

Sophos is a competitor. However, we mainly use Fortinet.

The tool has high availability and easy configurations. It has multiple features and is a secure product. Overall, I rate the product an eight out of ten.

We are an integration company and help clients with the integration of Fortinet FortiSwitch.

It is a cheap and secure solution. The job switching and security features are better than other solutions.

The scalability and technical support can be improved.

I have been using the solution for two years.

The solution is highly stable. I rate the stability a ten out of ten.

It is a scalable solution. The scalability of the solution depends on the hardware. We like stacking the number of switches but the solution is not owing any number, it is fixed. All our clients are enterprises. I rate the scalability an eight out of ten.

The technical support team is good but since it is not very big it does not provide immediate response on errors or technical issues. I rate the support an eight out of ten.

Positive

The initial setup is easy. The time taken for deployment depends on the number of devices, number of files, and number of switches. If they have FortiAnalyzer and the vendors are on the full solution then it can take a day, two days, or even weeks. It depends on the number of end users. Two engineers are enough for the deployment of the full solution. One person is required for maintenance like updates, troubleshooting, and problem fixing.

The pricing is cheap and only a yearly licensing cost needs to be paid.

Users can use FortiSwitch as it is a cheap, stable, scalable, and secure solution. I rate the overall solution a ten out of ten.

Our primary use cases are SD-WAN, web security, and web application filtering.

The most valuable feature is the SD-WAN support.

This device is easy to use.

The reporting capabilities should be included. As it is now, this can be purchased separately but competing solutions include it free of charge with the hardware.

In the future, we would like to be able to connect a SIM card and have 3G or 4G connectively directly on the device. This would work as a backup if our primary internet goes down.

We have been using Fortinet FortiSwitch for more than ten years.

Stability-wise, this product is better than others that are on the market.

The technical support is very good. However, we do not use them often because we have our own technical team that is certified by Fortinet.

The initial setup is straightforward.

We have an in-house team that was responsible for deployment.

There are two people on the team that handle maintenance.

Licensing is billed annually and contracts are either one or three years in length.

There are additional features available that can increase the price of the license.

My advice for anybody who is considering this product is that it's a secure and stable device. After configuration, there is no cost for maintenance. It's very stable and easy to use.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

The solution is good for the SMB side when they want to expand the firewall's ability.

The most valuable feature of the solution is the MAC feature. The monitoring from the firewall management can also handle the workstations in the organization.

The solution doesn't support other switches.

I have been using the solution for six years.

I rate the solution’s stability a nine out of ten.

Fortinet FortiSwitch is a scalable solution. Our clients for the solution are small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs).

The solution’s initial setup is easy.

Fortinet FortiSwitch is a pricey solution.

On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing a seven out of ten.

In every project, we need one person who knows how to deploy the tool. One network administrator can easily maintain the solution. The solution has AI features embedded in itself. Since each company has different needs, users should carefully plan the project.

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