Highlights:

  • The new firewalls offer seven times quicker SSL throughput and IPsec VPN performance than the industry standard to ensure that security teams have better visibility into encrypted data without degrading the user experience.

Although traditional data centers are the foundation of organizational insights, they use much power. According to research, conventional data centers require 32.61 Terawatt hours (TWh) of energy.

In light of such high energy consumption, businesses are under pressure to minimize the amount of power required to support their data centers and on-premises settings to meet their environmental and social governance (ESG) objectives.

In a bid to help organizations achieve the same, Fortinet unveiled the release of FortiGate 100F, a next-generation firewall (NGFW) that it claims produces 83% less power per Gbps firewall throughput. The solution may provide businesses with an energy-efficient option to secure incoming and outgoing traffic.

Working to achieve ESG objectives

More businesses are seeing the value of the ESG journey, even in the field of cybersecurity, where Gartner predicts that 30% of major organizations will have publicly published ESG targets focused on cybersecurity by 2026.

Nirav Shah, VP of products at Fortinet, said, “With CIOs under growing pressure to reduce the carbon footprint of their IT infrastructure, FortiGate 1000F continues Fortinet’s legacy of delivering NGFWs that provide the scale, performance, and power savings to get the security requirements of today’s enterprise data centers.”

Shah emphasized that while this strategy conserves energy, it may also be able to protect people, devices, and apps against unwelcome cyber threats.

Shah said, “With a single FortiOS operating system covering networking and security, networking and security teams can deliver coordinated, automated threat protection while maintaining a superior user experience. This is all accomplished in an eco-friendly way by consuming 80% less power than competitive solutions to help achieve corporate sustainability goals.”

The new firewalls offer seven times quicker SSL throughput and IPsec VPN performance than the industry standard to ensure that security teams have better visibility into encrypted data without degrading the user experience.

An overview of the market for next-generation firewalls

The market for next-generation firewalls, which analysts estimated to be worth USD 2,570.49 million in 2017 and USD 6,719.56 million by 2025, includes Fortinet.

The company is in a race with various reputable suppliers, such as Palo Alto Networks, which has a slew of NGFWs that utilizes machine learning to identify unknown zero-day assaults in real-time. Reportedly, Palo Alto Networks raised USD 1.6 billion in the fourth quarter of its fiscal year.

Sophos is another significant rival that provides its next-generation firewall with Transportation Layer Security (TLS) inspection, DPI, deep learning, and sandboxing to defend against cyber threats. Thoma Bravo acquired Sophos in 2020 for USD 3.8 billion.

At this point, energy efficiency is the primary distinction between FortiGate 1000F and other alternatives.

Shah added, “FortiGate 1000F requires 83% fewer watts per Gbps of firewall throughput and 86% fewer watts per Gbps of IPsec VPN throughput. FortiGate 1000F also requires less cooling than other solutions, generating only 15% of the BTU/h per Gbps of firewall throughput compared to competitive firewalls.”