Fortinet introduces Switching Blades

Fortinet has announced the newest flagship model in the FortiGate-5000 series appliance family along with a new high-performance switching option. These products combine to deliver essential network defences for dynamic, multi-tenant large enterprise and service provider networks, including security-as-a-service and infrastructure-as-a-service environments. 

The new FortiGate-5001B is a high-performance security blade that integrates a wide range of critical security services and native 10-Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) support for FortiGate-5000 chassis-based platforms. Delivering up to a blazing 40 Gbps of firewall throughput and up to 16 Gbps of virtual private network (VPN) throughput, the FortiGate-5001B integrates essential security functions in a compact Advanced Telecom Computing Architecture (ATCA)-compliant blade form factor. 

This includes enterprise firewall, virtual private network, application control, intrusion prevention, anti-virus/anti-malware, anti-spam and Web filtering. To optimize the performance of these security services, the FortiGate-5001B security blade integrates the latest Intel 4-core CPU and two Fortinet FortiASIC NP4 network processor chips. This is Fortinet's fourth generation of ATCA-compliant solutions, having shipped the first- generation of its ATCA chassis-based FortiGate-5001SX and FortiSw itch-5003 in 2004. 

Fortinet brought its second generation of ATCA-compliant appliances in 2006 with the FortiGate-5005FA2 and FortiController-5208 and the third generation in 2008 with the FortiGate-5001A and FortiSwitch-5003A. Adding onto Fortinet’s pioneering innovation in the telecom industry is the FortiGate's achievement of NEBS Level 3 compliance - a requirement for operation of carrier-class equipment in the central offices of major telecommunications companies.