Fortinet

Fortinet delivers a unified-access wired/wireless network capability with strong security applications that simplify management, troubleshooting and policy enforcement. Fortinet serves midsize and distributed enterprises, including education and retailers.

The Secure Access Architecture integrates Fortinet's core Firewall and other security capabilities into a unified access network. Version 5.6 of FortiOS (Fortinet's network security operating system) has extended network visibility and management under a common framework that includes switches, WLAN access points, sandboxing and security products.

Fortinet's wireless solution has two distinctive architectures. One is based on the FortiGate Firewall appliances with integrated WLAN controller functionality, and the other is a more traditional infrastructure — based on its acquisition of Meru Networks — that can be managed on-premises via a WLAN controller or from the cloud.

The FortiAP-S series is Wave 1 and Wave 2 802.11ac access points that also include an integrated Firewall and are able to perform real-time security processing. The company generates about 80% of its revenue in the North America and EMEA regions and focuses on education, retail, and distributed enterprise markets.

Fortinet pushes real-time security patches and malware or virus definition updates out to network customers, rather than providing them as periodic batch updates, reducing the time that network elements may be vulnerable to newly created or identified threats.

The combination of FortiOS running on every Fortinet device with FortiSIEM delivers a strong security framework for managing IoT devices at the access layer, including the ability to implement IoT containment through policy-driven segmentation. Fortinet does not charge a licensing fee for its infrastructure wireless access points, leading to lower cost.