Fortinet and Cisco partner for SDN

MUMBAI, INDIA: Fortinet has integrated its FortiGate next-generation firewall platform with the Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) software-defined networking, or SDN fabric.

The FortiGate integration with ACI will provide customers with firewall, advanced intrusion prevention (IPS) and threat management in environments running Cisco networking fabric, for cloud and data center use cases.

How the integration works?

The open framework of Cisco ACI enables ecosystem partners to seamlessly interoperate with Cisco ACI fabric. In this case, Cisco ACI with Fortinet provide an automated approach based on application-specific policies that allow data center applications to securely and dynamically scale on demand. For example, in cloud and managed service environments, as server, storage, other infrastructure are automatically provisioned for a new application, security can be seamlessly deployed, ensuring proper security controls even before the application is launched. This helps to ensure privacy and compliance for tenants and business teams, and higher efficiency and agility for providers and internal IT.

Customer endorsement:

According to Erik Sohlman, Manager, Infrastructure, QBranch, an Information and Communications Technology (ICT) service provider in Stockholm, Sweden, “With ACI we can deliver better time-to-market with automation and scripting, and our customers also demand higher value L4-L7 services.  For the partner ecosystem that Cisco provides, the integration with major hypervisors and others like Fortinet is a true benefit to our business.”

Vendors speak:

Rajesh Maurya, Country Manager, India & Saarc, Fortinet, said, “We have been executing on a broad cloud and SDN vision and strategy to meet customer requirements, but by extending our efforts to Cisco’s ACI, Fortinet is fulfilling an integral piece of its overall strategy.”

“Cisco ACI provides an open framework which allows our customers the ability to take advantage of their preferred vendors and solutions when they deploy ACI,” added Soni Jiandani, SVP, Cisco.