Fortinet FortiSwitch - Secure Access Reviews

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 those switches as our main switches on-site. Everything is FortiSwitch, and everything wireless is FortiAP.

The product is very secure. It's enterprise-level. Because we are always upgrading to the latest firmware and stuff, everything is very solid, and our network runs much better than before.

The pricing could be improved, and it could be easier to configure. As Fortinet comes up with different firmware and updates, I am sure these problems will decrease. They will finetune their upgrades and firmware to make upgrading to the next versions easy.

I've used the solution for about two years, and we're using the latest version.

The product is stable and reliable. It's an enterprise-grade switch. If you plug anything into any outlet in the office, it gets connected to a switch, and you'll be able to get analytics.

We used to get issues where people bring in their own devices, and once they get access to a network cable, they just plug into the network point and had access to browse the Internet. Now, even though all ports are connected to switches, you won't get anything if the port is not enabled.

About 500 people at our company use the solution.

We have managed service providers who have support licenses with Fortinet. We normally have a three-year support license with Fortinet, so anything beyond that is good. On-site, we are the first line of support, the managed service providers are the second line, and Fortinet will be the third line, in that order.

Before this, we were using Ubiquiti wireless access points. However, because that was not enterprise-level, the company policy changed that we should only use enterprise-level devices, and Fortinet was chosen over Cisco. We changed all the Ubiquiti access points to FortiAPs and all the switches that used to be HPE to FortiSwitches, and the firewall also is FortiGate so that they'll all work together to get alerts.

The setup is a bit complex, but it works once you get it right.

During deployment, we first deployed the firewalls before we came to the switches and the APs. We were fully set up for the firewalls and switches within three months. After that, it took a week to change all the APs to FortiAPs.

We have a managed service provider, so they are the ones we work with. They manage our backend systems, so they are the ones that did the deployment.

I have seen an ROI. My investment is very good because security is key for us. Our network is secure from the firewall down to the AP, and we have peace of mind.

We signed up for a three-year license for support and replacement. We've had one situation where one switch we were upgrading to the latest firmware failed after I rebooted. Fortinet came in to try and troubleshoot. They tried everything, but it still wasn't working, so they replaced the switch. The pricing is expensive.

We have cloud solutions as well, where we have FortiCloud, a cloud solution around our switches.

I rate the product a ten out of ten for reliability and scalability. It's sometimes a bit difficult to configure. If we want to add another FortiSwitch to uplink on another one, it is difficult to remember where we have to go to tell the other switch to also talk to the FortiLink. However, I am confident that that is a security feature because it means nobody can just get on and do anything. Overall, I rate the product a ten out of ten.

To anyone planning to use the product, we are scaling it to other mining sites as well. Because this is the first location, we've done everything here. Once everything is deployed here successfully, we will scale it onto the other sites. We are ready to install the product onto another site, which we have already put in the firewall. But instead of the switches, we went with the APs first and have deployed about 165 APs. Now, we are waiting for the switches to come in so we can also put in the switches to complete the work. We will then scale from there to the next site.

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.

The solution helps provide a seamless internet connection.

I can't comment much on the valuable features of the solution since I work in a cargo company that has outsourced its IT operations to another company. I can say that the product is easy to use.

I feel that the product's stability is an area where improvements are required.

I have experience with Fortinet FortiSwitch - Secure Access. I use an older version of the solution.

It is a stable solution. Stability-wise, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

I don't know about the solution's technical support since Fortinet FortiSwitch - Secure Access is a product that is outsourced to others by our company. The product's technical support is good.

The initial setup of the product was easy.

The solution can be deployed in an hour.

There is another external IT team to take care of the deployment process of the tool since my company is only involved in the action of outsourcing the product to other companies.

The initial setup of the product was managed by one of the in-house teams in the company.

Price-wise, I find Fortinet FortiSwitch - Secure Access to be an okay product. It is not an expensive product.

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.

I like the VLAN setup of Fortinet FortiSwitch - Secure Access.

It would be easier if Fortinet FortiSwitch - Secure Access could be managed via cloud, and this is something that could be improved in this product.

In the next release of this product, it would be great if they could display or show the bandwidth in a better way.

I've been using Fortinet FortiSwitch - Secure Access for eight years, and I've used it in the past 12 months.

The stability of Fortinet FortiSwitch - Secure Access is very good.

Fortinet FortiSwitch - Secure Access has very good scalability.

I have experience contacting the technical support team of Fortinet FortiSwitch - Secure Access, and if I were to rate them with five being the highest, I'm rating them four out of five.

Fortinet FortiSwitch - Secure Access is easy to set up. It only takes minutes to deploy this product, because it is mostly boxes.

I'm using Fortinet, and I'm working mostly with FortiGate. They have a lot of programs. I also have experience with Fortinet FortiSwitch - Secure Access.

I have experience with versions 6.4 and 7.0 of Fortinet FortiSwitch - Secure Access.

The number of users we have for this product, including the users of our customers, total to 3,000.

We're not using a licensed version of Fortinet FortiSwitch - Secure Access. You can buy it, but that's mostly for maintenance.

I'm giving Fortinet FortiSwitch - Secure Access a score of eight out of ten.