We are pleased to announce that Fortinet has been named a Leader in the IDC MarketScape: Worldwide SD-WAN Infrastructure 2023 Vendor Assessment (doc#US50471623, September 2023) report for the second time.* As organizations increasingly look to securely connect their complex, highly distributed networks, the market has been filled with vendors offering a wide array of solutions. Third-party reports like the IDC MarketScape SD-WAN Infrastructure Assessment and the recent 2023 Gartner? Magic Quadrant? for SD-WAN play a critical role in helping IT leaders make informed decisions.

Today's network architectures and operations are growing in complexity. And as users, offices, and resources are increasingly distributed, the network attack surface is also rapidly expanding. At the same time, the need for fast, reliable, and secure access to applications by users and devices has become vital. Addressing modern complexity-and the resulting threat exposure-requires a solution that can adapt as the network evolves. According to the IDC MarketScape report, the SD-WAN infrastructure market grew 25.0% in 2022, and they estimate that the market will continue to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 10.1% through 2027, reaching$7.5 billion.

However, not all SD-WAN solutions are the same. Many only support a limited number of use cases, others struggle to scale as your network expands, and many only provide minimal security, or worse, leave you to figure out how to secure your dynamic SD-WAN connections. What's needed is a solution that can support the seamless convergence of on-premises SD-WAN with cloud-delivered security to support your hybrid workforce regardless of where they are located. You need a solution that enables hybrid and multi-cloud connectivity to accelerate and secure your digital-first journey.

IDC MarketScape Report Details on the Value of SD-WAN

The IDC MarketScape: Worldwide SD-WAN Infrastructure 2023 Vendor Assessment report provides critical information on the value and need for SD-WAN. Its key findings include:

• SD-WAN remains an important network infrastructure technology for enterprises due to its ability to improve user and application experiences, provide integrated connectivity and security, and enable seamless connectivity to the cloud and hosted applications, all while optimizing costs.
• Key components of SD-WAN infrastructure include a centralized policy controller, automatic management of hybrid wired and wireless WAN connections, dynamic path selection of application traffic, and optional programmability, security, and analytics of wide area network (WAN) traffic.
• For organizations, SD-WAN enables myriad benefits including, but not limited to, improving reliability by augmenting existing WAN connectivity with redundant failover across dual links, setting application traffic steering via automated software management tools, and ensuring that sensitive traffic is prioritized over noncritical traffic, and the ability to provide more direct connections between users and devices and the distributed applications they're accessing.

Additional Critical SD-WAN Functions

In addition to these core requirements, an effective SD-WAN solution must also provide the following critical functions:

• An effective SD-WAN solution should support the transition to secure access service edge (SASE) and SD-Branch through integrated networking, security, and unified management.
• SD-WAN must facilitate the shift to a 5G wireless WAN while ensuring reliable and secure connectivity.
• It should include advanced capabilities, such as AIOps and digital experience monitoring (DEM), to enhance IT and user experience.
• It should seamlessly integrate with your existing network, security, and cloud infrastructures to provide end-to-end connectivity and policy enforcement.
• Centralized management and deep interoperability, delivered through a unified operating system, enables automation, accelerates deployment, and simplifies your network architecture.

Fortinet Secure SD-WAN

The Fortinet Secure SD-WAN solution provides all these and more, protecting your investment along your digital-first journey by scaling and adapting to your network's ongoing evolution.

According to the IDC MarketScape: Worldwide SD-WAN Infrastructure 2023 Vendor Assessment report, one of Fortinet's key strengths is that "Fortinet offers highly integrated security and networking SD-WAN capability. Fortinet SD-WAN customers deploy the product on the company's FortiGate physical or virtual appliance, which has integrated next-generation firewall capabilities, along with SSL inspection."

To ensure scalability and optimal user experience, the Fortinet FortiGate infrastructure is built around custom security and networking ASICs designed to improve performance, consume less power, and increase the inspection of encrypted traffic. Fortinet Secure SD-WAN also delivers a seamless 5G experience via FortiExtender 5G/LTE Wireless WAN gateways, allowing customers to easily leverage cellular failover and active/active cellular connections in the same dashboard. And because all these functions run on a single operating system, FortiOS, its unified management simplifies configuration, identifies and troubleshoots problems, and enables automation to maintain optimal connectivity and security.

But don't take our word for it. In addition to being positioned as a Leader in SD-WAN by the IDC MarketScape and Gartner, Fortinet's Secure SD-WAN solution's functionality and performance have been validated through the third-party test lab CyberRatings.org. Vikram Phatak, CEO of CyberRatings.org, said, "The Fortinet SD-WAN handled all use cases with ease and proved to be highly reliable and capable. It should be on everyone's short list." We couldn't agree more.

*Source: IDC MarketScape: Worldwide SD-WAN Infrastructure 2021 Vendor Assessment (doc#US47279821, November 2021)