Bangkok--12 Mar--Spark Communications
Cost-effectiveness of Consolidated Security Platform Resonates Strongly with Customers to Fuel Company’s Growth and Profit for 4Q08 and 2008
Fortinet? - a market-leading network security provider and worldwide leader of unified threat management (UTM) solutions - today announced its FortiOS? 4.0 operating system, a major firmware upgrade which integrates hundreds of new features to significantly improve the value and functionality of its FortiGate? multi-threat security appliances. Four of the most notable features of Fortinet’s new OS include application control, data leakage protection (DLP), WAN optimization and SSL traffic inspection. The combination of these features will help customers to secure their network by removing the malicious traffic that is reducing available bandwidth and, at the same time, accelerate the clean traffic for optimal network performance. With FortiOS 4.0, Fortinet is redefining the consolidated security landscape it founded by offering a broad and powerful combination of security and networking services in a single, integrated platform.
In all, the four most significant features of FortiOS 4.0 will help companies of all sizes enhance their security defenses, realize more value for their money, and improve management efficiencies. Primary benefits that the new operating system will bring to FortiGate customers include the following:
- Access to innovative new security technologies, often otherwise available only as standalone products;
- Improved security through the tight integration of security technologies that interoperate seamlessly;
- Improved security and control over local users who communicate with an increasing number of Web-based applications, driven by computing trends such as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and cloud computing;
- Reduction in the number of physical devices necessary to implement desired security and networks services, which will help to reduce both carbon and physical footprints, simplify management and enable CAPEX/OPEX savings.
“We’re finding ourselves in a perfect storm as we launch the latest operating system for the FortiGate product line — we have a product that has cost-efficiency as part of its DNA and an environment that’s looking for more ways to maximize every dollar spent without sacrificing security,” said Ken Xie, founder, CEO and president, Fortinet. “The confluence of these factors point to the need for a powerful yet fiscally-prudent security solution for customers who are, more than ever, pressured to do more with less. FortiOS 4.0 is a great example of the technology innovation that is at Fortinet’s core, and we’re very pleased to be able to provide it to customers when they need it most.”
FortiOS 4.0: Enhanced, Accelerated, Secured
The rich set of functionalities that FortiOS 4.0 brings to FortiGate appliances will dramatically enhance security and network performance as detailed below:
- Application Control — to recognize traffic as the application which is generating it, instead of the port or protocol observed; enforces security policy for more than 1000 applications; facilitates control over evasive applications that use non-standard ports, port-hopping, or tunneling within trusted ports and protocols;
- Data Leakage Prevention — to help identify and prevent the communication of sensitive information outside of the network boundaries; works across any application and also is effective where traffic is SSL-encrypted; configurable actions provides audit trails for data and files, aides in legislative compliance; protects an organization’s sensitive information;
- WAN Optimization — to accelerate applications over WAN connections while ensuring multi-threat security enforcement; increases network performance; reduces data transmitted across a WAN; reduces bandwidth and server resource requirements, improves user productivity; reduces networking costs (FortiGate models with local storage capabilities are required to take advantage of this feature);
- SSL Inspection — to increase security and policy control among encrypted traffic streams; inspects otherwise hidden communication; increased protection for secure web and application servers; improved visibility into network traffic.
“Changing business processes and threats are driving new requirements for network security. Increasing bandwidth and new application communication (such as Web 2.0) are changing how protocols are used and how data is presented. Software as a service is moving critical data off-site, and an increasing reliance on critical IT is pushing security in new directions,” said Greg Young and John Pescatore, Gartner, Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Firewalls, November 2008.
Additional information on FortiOS 4.0 and other Fortinet products can be accessed at /products. All existing FortiGate customers with active maintenance contracts can upgrade to the new OS at little to no additional cost.*
Fourth Quarter and Fiscal Year 2008 Corporate and Financial Highlights
Fortinet also announced key corporate and financial highlights that contributed to the company’s continued growth and positive financial results in the fourth quarter of 2008 and for the fiscal year ending December 28, 2008. Strong market demand for Fortinet’s consolidated security appliances, coupled with sound business execution, led the company to achieve the first ever full-year GAAP profitability. Fortinet increased fourth quarter 2008 revenues by 35 percent to $59 million and billings by 31 percent to $73 million, compared to the fourth quarter of 2007. Additionally, Fortinet increased fiscal year 2008 revenues by 36 percent to $212 million and billings by 30 percent to $252 million year over year.
“While many companies are contracting during this economic downturn, Fortinet is experiencing strong growth and experienced our best year to date in 2008,” said Ken Xie, founder, president and CEO of Fortinet. “In this cost-conscious environment, efficiency is the new technology must-have. As technological and cost efficiencies are the foundation upon which the Fortinet integrated security platform was built, it has served Fortinet and our customers very well, especially in times of financial uncertainty.”
About Fortinet ( www.fortinet.com )
Fortinet is the pioneer and leading provider of ASIC-accelerated unified threat management, or UTM, security systems, which are used by enterprises and service providers to increase their security while reducing total operating costs. Fortinet solutions were built from the ground up to integrate multiple levels of security protection--including firewall, antivirus, intrusion prevention, VPN, web filtering, spyware prevention, and anti-spam -- designed to help customers protect against network and content level threats. Leveraging a custom ASIC and a unified interface, Fortinet solutions offer advanced security functionality that scales from remote office to chassis-based solutions with integrated management and reporting capabilities. Fortinet solutions have won multiple awards around the world and are the only security products that are certified in six programs by ICSA Labs: Firewall, Antivirus, IPSec VPN, SSL VPN, Network IPS, and Anti-spam. Fortinet is privately held and based in Sunnyvale, California.
Copyright ? 2009 Fortinet, Inc. All rights reserved. The symbols ? and ? denote respectively federally registered trademarks and unregistered trademarks of Fortinet, Inc., its subsidiaries and affiliates. Fortinet’s trademarks include, but are not limited to, the following: Fortinet, FortiGate, FortiGuard, FortiManager, FortiMail, FortiClient, FortiCare, FortiAnalyzer, FortiReporter, FortiOS, FortiASIC, FortiWiFi, FortiSwitch, FortiVoIP, FortiBIOS, FortiLog, FortiResponse, FortiDB and FortiWeb. Other trademarks belong to their respective owners. Fortinet has not independently verified statements herein attributed to third parties and Fortinet does not separately endorse any such statements.
Less than five percent of current FortiGate appliances will be unable to upgrade to FortiOS 4.0 due to hardware requirements
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Parritta or Kalayapas
Spark Communications
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Email: [email protected] or [email protected]