Fortinet FortiWLM Reviews

We use Fortinet FortiWLM in medical offices.

The most valuable features of this solution are its speed, reliability, and integration with the firewall.

Cost is something that could be improved, but you have to pay for what you get.

 I have been dealing with Fortinet FortiWLM for three years.

The series we are using is 431F.

The stability of Fortinet FortiWLM is phenomenal.

The scalability is exceptional. You can integrate into the firewall and have full visibility on a single pane of glass.

Phenomenal. Fortinet's technical support is outstanding.

Previously, we were using Meraki. We are getting better coverage, better throughput, and a more stable connection with Fortinet FortiWLM.

The initial setup is pretty straightforward. It can be deployed in minutes.

I am a single person responsible to maintain, more than 18 offices and 60 APs. I do everything myself. The single pane of glass and the integration of the complete Fortinet product line, are very easy to deploy and maintain.

The prices are high, but you get what you pay for if you can afford it.

Support contracts typically cost approximately $100.00 per year.

In addition to licensing fees, there are no other costs.

We replaced Meraki, and my advice is that we switched from a mandatory maintenance contract to an optional maintenance contract, which costs significantly less per unit.

I would rate Fortinet FortiWLM a nine out of ten.

We use it for wireless at our remote locations.

We're using SD-WAN at all of our locations now, which helps increase and aggregate and lower response time and improve application performance.

Another thing we have seen is increased security awareness.

• UTM (Unified Threat Management)
• Centralized management
• Cost
• Ease of use

Manageability is a key.

The centralized management features could be improved. I think they're good, but I think they could be better.

I can't recall any stability issues.

Scalability is fine.

Their tech support is average. Their response time is average. Their first-level support is okay, but it's not terrific. The few times we've had to open tickets, we've had to escalate to get to an engineer who could help. Usually, when we call, there is something really wrong and the front-liners are not geared toward high-end support.

We switched primarily due to feature functionality and cost. It offered a lot more value.

It was fairly straightforward. With any new product you need training because it's different.  We needed a little bit of training but it wasn't anything that was difficult.

The product's pricing is a good value. 

Licensing is the only area where I think they are below average. They need enterprise licensing, an all-encompassing license to cover all products for a company.

We evaluated a lot of different solutions including Palo Alto, Cisco, SonicWall.

Overall, putting it in place was fairly straightforward. As with anything, I would plan it and test it before implementing. That's for any product, it's not specific to Fortinet.

I give it a nine out of 10. The price performance is unmatched. If they came out with enterprise licensing, I would give it a 10.

The solution is used as a wireless router.

The most valuable feature of the solution is the management.

The technical support response time can use improvement.

The pricing for the solution is expensive and can be improved.

I have been using the solution for eight years.

I give the stability a nine out of ten.

I give the scalability an eight out of ten.

The technical support team is knowledgeable but the response time can be improved.

Positive

I give the initial setup a nine out of ten. I like the way FortiGate devices manage the FortiAPs. Each AP takes between five and ten minutes to adapt to the FortiGate.

The solution is expensive. I give the solution a one out of ten for the price.

I give the solution a nine out of ten.

We are an internet and telecom service provider, so we are not the final customer. We provide secure wireless LAN solutions to our customers, and for internal services as well.

We show how we can bring many positive results to different businesses.

We merge with the customers' bring-your-own-device solutions. It's easy to manage the WiFi, the customer does not need to buy more equipment, like tablets, for their employees. They can reuse equipment. And employees are definitely comfortable using their own devices and, from the IT and security perspectives, we are bringing security to these employees, with our solution. We innovate the business process. We innovate how employees work in their companies.

Also, in the case of stores, we are bringing new results and new income. We help them to grow their sales. Their customers like to go to their stores because they can access the information they need. They can connect to the wireless LAN, they can compare prices. We are making the business process faster and more secure, and customers like that. They can engage with the retail store.

Using this technology, the stores' loyalty programs are growing because, when customers go into the stores, they can connect with the loyalty programs to receive discounts and special items. This makes their customers more loyal to the stores, who are our customers.

We have some international retail customers, such as H&M, from Sweden, and another one from the U.S. and, in both cases, monthly sales have increased about ten to 15 percent. In these cases, income was one of the benefits that they received in the quarter after we installed the solution. The results were very quick.

In addition, we make the business process, the internal process of distribution and logistics, more efficient and connected. We're reporting, online, how they are distributing all the items to the different stores. And the inventory is connected to the wireless LAN solutions, so they know, online and in a centralized way, what the inventory levels are in the different stores.

Security is the feature we like most from Fortinet. In general, their security architecture is really great, because it involves everything: firewalls, wireless LANs, the user. Everything is really secure. That's a great feature from Fortinet. It's very valuable.

Sometimes we feel that we are buying the top-of-the-line technology and, six months or eight months later, we feel it is already obsolete. New smartphones bring new technology, new ways to connect. Sometimes we have this bad feeling that, even though we are investing tons of money, technology is moving faster than us. So even with this huge amount of investment, one year later we are totally obsolete compared with the new technology.

They need to make it move faster. They need to make it easier to configure, easier to monitor, easier to report.

We have great tech support from Fortinet, here in Mexico. But if we have a big issue, like a big bug, and they need to produce new versions of the software in their R&D departments, this is the slowest part.

It is very stable. In the last 16 to 18 months, there have been no big issues related to the solution.

It is really scalable. That is one of the decisive, key points we consider in all our projects. In the case of Fortinet Wireless, it is really scalable.

We get good response from the tech guys at Fortinet. Our experience with them is absolutely positive.

We used to have some HPE equipment. We switched from those old access points. We use Fortinet as a preferred vendor, but if a customer wants or needs to use equipment from other vendors, we sell equipment from other vendors.

Setting up the solution is really straightforward. The amount of time it takes depends on the customer. If it's a really big customer, the implementation process could take from three months to almost ten months. Once you have all the plans and you start installing, it's really straightforward and it can move fast.

For Mexico, a big customer is the one that has more than 200 retail stores. They are not as big as in the U.S. or in other countries, but for Mexico, a retail store that has 250 stores is a huge company.

The deployment strategy depends on the project manager and his staff. Because we are telecom service providers, we usually start with all the internet connections, and voice and data connection, using fibre. Once we have all that in place, we start building the local area networks.

In terms of deployment and maintenance, on average, I would estimate it's about eight to ten percent of the investment. It depends on the customer and the approach we have with the customer. We usually have two or three engineers, per customer, giving support. But that's not just for the wireless, that's also for the networking. For a huge retail company, we may have between five and ten certified engineers working on daily support for the customer.

ROI depends on the customer but it could be from six months to 12 months, on average. It's a good return on investment. More sales. More savings. It reduces the TCO, but I don't have the numbers. It could be a reduction of, maybe, 15 percent, compared to other solutions.

It's definitely a great solution.

Negotiate with the vendor to activate the licenses at the moment that they install and configure the equipment. If you initially have a big project with a lot of equipment, and you have a six-month plan, licensing will start before you are using all the equipment, and that doesn't make sense.

In terms of how extensively it's being used and whether its usage will grow, it's really organic. People are using the internet and using all kinds of applications on a daily basis. It's growing, more people are connected every day. Usage is changing dramatically, exponentially, really. As more people use the internet and applications on a daily basis, our customers are required to increase services and, obviously, in a secure way.

We are a technical services company and this is one of the solutions that we provide to our clients. My client was interested in adding a guest network to the existing infrastructure. The main requirement was that the new access points needed to be able to integrate properly, but any guests should not be able to connect to his main network.

It was a very old network with no VLAN and there was no interest in implementing one. This solution allowed for the creation of different networks without the need for a VLAN or the installation of layer two switches.

The most valuable feature is the ability to connect and broadcast to different networks without using a VLAN or a layer two switch, which allows you to easily create guest networks. This is a very useful and very different feature compared to other solutions on the market. In every customer meeting, this is the feature that we highlight.

The solution is easy to use and the GUI is user-friendly.

The guest management features need to be improved by adding automation. There is a facility for guest management through a portal, but it should be automatic. As it is now, the IT person has to edit and do things manually. All of the details should be maintained in the FortiCloud.

I would like to see some small access points or signal extenders added to the product line to help with areas that do not have full coverage. 

I have been working with Fortinet wireless for the past seven years, and for fourteen years in total with Fortinet solutions.

In the past seven years that I have been working with this solution, I have not had any issues regarding stability.

This scalability is good.

I have been in contact with technical support a few times, although it was for known product issues that required doing things like installing a new driver. Overall, I would rate them to be good.

We have deployed solutions from D-Link and NETGEAR for certain clients, although they have not needed to have the depth of features that are offered by Fortinet Wireless. These include both security options and the facility for providing a guest network.

The initial setup is easy and user-friendly. The deployment is highly efficient, and it may take 25 minutes to configure if you have a maximum of ten access points. At most, it may take three to four hours.

For indoor access points, there is a one-time cost, upfront, whereas outdoor access points have an annual fee.

Compared to some of the wireless solutions by Cisco, Aruba, and HP, this product is a little bit costly. However, Fortinet has good security and other good features that the customers are interested in.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

I use Fortinet FortiWLM for wireless communication and the internet. 

The solution should improve user capacity. 

I have been working with the solution for three months. 

I rate Fortinet FortiWLM's stability an eight out of ten. 

I rate the tool's scalability a ten out of ten. 

Fortinet FortiWLM's installation was easy. 

The tool offers good returns on business. 

Fortinet FortiWLM's pricing is regular and competitive. 

I rate the product a nine out of ten. 

Our primary use is for official purposes. On our campus, there are two employees who have a laptop and move here and there, and sub-faculties are always trying to connect to Google or other resources, for any documentation purposes. The facility is huge. So for online purposes, we give them the flexibility so that wherever they are on campus they can easily connect to the internet.

All their features are common. Nothing more. All the features are controlled behind the Fortinet firewall. Is there any wireless controller to balance the load? Or what report do they give for the stated purpose? Basically, we need to put more focus on the reporting end for their sustainability.

I have been using Fortinet Wireless for the last five years.

The product is a stable solution.

In terms of scalability, we will not replace Fortinet for our staff purposes. But we have a very large group of students for whom we are planning to use it to give them online education. For that purpose, we are planning to handle the number of 40,000 students on our campus so that we can synchronize real data over any streaming material or tablet.

Because of that, because of the technology changes every year, this is not suitable for the search crowd.

Technical support is very poor. We are not satisfied with the technical support because there is not any direct person from Fortinet for any troubleshooting, which we expected.

On a scale from one to 10, where one is the worst and 10 is the best, I would rate Fortinet Wireless three out of 10.

You may discuss this with any of the other clients who are using Fortinet. I think you will find out what kind of support Fortinet gives because there is no direct person involved from the Fortinet side to give client support. They depend on the mediator or integrators or suppliers. They help. They are trained but they are not from Fortinet. I would not go with Fortinet. You can think of it as a customer buying a Fortinet product from the company and the company has stopped their service. Then who will look after those clients? 

So I think there should be a direct person who provides service to the client. It could either be a portal or there could be another way to improve the services.

We started the utilization in our warehouse to improve the connection for our hand scanner and cameras. 

The Access Points work with two radios (2.4GHz and 5GHz) and it was the best feature because some scanners are new with AC wireless support. The firewall integration was another good feature because is very fast to setup.

The firewall integration is very important for the security of the connection. For each SSID it's possible to create rules to specify connections.

This solution should be easier to set up in a production environment.

We intend to implement this solution in our production area and eventually replace cable connections with wireless service.