Fortinet’s new FortiGate platform converges firewall, SASE technologies

Fortinet has expanded its firewall family with new high-speed boxes that, when combined with the vendor’s FortiSASE Outpost software, extend cloud-based SASE (secure access service edge) capabilities and policy enforcement to on-premises environments.

The new midrange FortiGate 1200G series supports 10G, 25G, and 100G connectivity options and delivers 397 Gbps firewall throughput. It’s aimed at securing campus, data center, and hybrid environments that need to inspect large volumes of encrypted traffic without sacrificing performance, according to Fortinet. The 1200G fills the gap between Fortinet’s campus, edge, and branch appliances, such as the 400G, and its flagship data center platforms like the 3500G.

The new boxes run the vendor’s recently announced FortiOS 8.0 operating system, which includes new capabilities such as AI-assisted operations, enhanced Security Fabric integration, networking features, and SASE-related enhancements. One of those SASE-related features – FortiSASE Outpost – is enabled by FortiOS 8.0.

When configured as a FortiSASE Outpost, the 1200G can be deployed as a local SASE point of presence (POP), extending SASE enforcement closer to users and applications in customer-controlled locations, such as on-premises sites, private data centers, or colocation facilities, while maintaining centralized cloud management, according to Fortinet. Users can maintain local enforcement where needed without building separate stacks, the vendor stated.

The FortiSASE interface centrally manages configuration, policy, monitoring, lifecycle operations, and upgrades across both deployment models, maintaining consistent zero-trust policies, visibility and protection without treating the on-site POP as a separate security environment. In addition customers can keep designated traffic, logs, and processing within defined geographic or private infrastructure boundaries to meet regulatory requirements and reduce connectivity costs without changing the end-user…