Choosing the right firewall for your data center has never been more important. Data centers play a crucial role in modern IT architecture, especially in the context of hybrid and cloud computing environments. As organizations adopt these new technologies, their data center strategies must adapt to accommodate the changing landscape.

And that landscape has evolved to give workers more flexibility to access resources on a corporate network from any location with any device. Work is no longer a location; it's an activity. Productivity is no longer regulated to certain hours in the day with access to applications in one place. It's 24x7.

In today's market, customers face a multitude of options when evaluating solutions from various vendors. Third-party reports play a pivotal role in providing customers with valuable insights to make informed decisions. These reports offer an independent and external perspectivethat can guide customers through the intricate process of solution assessment. It is with a sense of accomplishment that we share our recognition in the 2023 Gartner? Critical Capabilities for Network Firewalls report, as the highest-ranked solution for the Enterprise Data Center Use Case.

We believe this acknowledgment reaffirms our commitment to delivering excellence in this space. While third-party assessments like Gartner undoubtedly provide valuable insights, we also recognize the importance of a holistic evaluation, considering various sources and real-world performance.

Securing Mission Critical Data: 2023 Gartner? Critical Capabilities for Network Firewalls

The Gartner? Critical Capabilities report evaluated 17 network firewall vendors for their performance across nine critical capabilities with methodologies that assign different weights for each ability. A Critical Capabilities document is a comparative analysis that scores competing products or services against a set of critical differentiators identified by Gartner. It shows which products or services are the best fit in various use cases to provide actionable advice on which products/services to shortlist for further evaluation.

Fortinet ranked#1 for the Enterprise Data Center Use Case in the 2023 Gartner? Critical Capabilities for Network Firewalls report, marking the fourth time in a row that Fortinet has received the highest overall score for the Enterprise Data Center Use Case.

The Fortinet Advantage for the Data Center

We believe these consistent recognitions are a testament to the custom-built ASIC technology used in all of our FortiGate Next-Generation Firewalls (NGFWs). This technology delivers unparalleled, power-efficient performance compared to the industry standard, helping businesses reduce risk and cost while increasing revenue opportunities and ROI.

Organizations face several challenges when securing their data centers today, and FortiGate NGFWs are built from the ground up to address these common issues so customers can worry less about cybersecurity and more about business outcomes. Here are just a few challenges specific to data center security and how FortiGate NGFWs empower customers to overcome them:

• Distributed data centers make it challenging to provide consistent security, visibility, and control.
  • How Fortinet helps: The Fortinet Security Fabric, which is powered by our single operating system,FortiOS,consolidates a wide range of security solutions into a single policy and management framework. FortiGate data center NGFWs are built on FortiOS, and useFortiManager, a unified management console, so they can provide coordinated protection across the entire environment via anhybrid mesh firewall architecture.
• Data centers are often tasked with integrating with the various solutions and technologies within a hybrid environment.
  • How Fortinet helps: FortiGate NGFWs use open APIs to extend interoperability to more than 500 partners, streamlining enterprisewide workflows.
• The volume of traffic within hyperscale data centers poses unique security challenges.
  • How Fortinet helps: To secure the most demanding data center architectures, FortiGate NGFWs leverage purpose-built SPUs to deliver up to 520 Gbps of threat protection and 1.9 Tbps of firewall throughput with anti-DDoS and ransomware protection.
• Sustainability has become a business requirement, but data centers often consume significant energy.
  • How Fortinet helps: FortiGate NGFWs deliver energy-efficient performance, consuming 61% less power than competitive offerings.

We believe this recognition from Gartner for the Enterprise Data Center Use Case highlights the strength of our solution. Learn more about our FortiGate NGFW and FortiGuard AI-Powered Security Services for the data center here.

Gartner ? Critical Capabilities for Network Firewalls, 16 May 2023, Adam Hils, et. Al.

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