Fortinet launches switches for secure campus connectivity

Fortinet has launched two new high-performance switches to support the modern campus's growing connectivity and security needs. 

The new campus switches, the FortiSwitch 600 and 2000, deliver high performance, embedded intelligence, and seamless integration with Fortinet's AIOps management tool and FortiGuard AI-Powered Security Services.  

Fortinet recognises that users require more bandwidth than ever, and many organisations are investing in next-generation wireless access points (APs) to provide increased connectivity. To ensure network availability and a positive user experience, organisations need high-performance switches that intelligently organise AP traffic and prevent bottlenecks.

The new FortiSwitch 600 and 2000 announced have expanded Fortinet's secure, simplified, and scalable switching portfolio. They are designed with the performance and port density to meet the demands of the modern campus and scale as connectivity needs grow. 

The FortiSwitch 600 series is a multi-gigabit secure campus access switch with up to 5GE access and 25GE uplinks to optimise network performance by intelligently supporting traffic from next-gen APs to business-critical destinations. 

The FortiSwitch 2000 series is a campus core switch designed to support more significant, complex campus environments by aggregating high-performance access switches, like the FortiSwitch 600. Both include a dual power supply for the redundancy today's high-performance campuses require.

Fortinet has delivered wired and wireless LAN solutions that converge networking and security since the company's founding 20 years ago. The new switches announced are the latest additions to its secure connectivity platform, which provides comprehensive protection, access control, and unified management throughout the LAN.

John Maddison, Chief Marketing Officer and Executive Vice President of Product Strategy at Fortinet, says: "Fortinet has delivered secure switching solutions for 20 years, making it uniquely positioned to empower customers with a comprehensive secure connectivity solution for the entire local area network (LAN)." 

"Fortinet is the only vendor offering fully converged wired and wireless networking and AI-powered security through a single platform, providing visibility and security from the moment a user or device connects to the network."

Customers who use FortiGate Next-Generation Firewalls (NGFW) as a switching controller eliminate overlays while benefiting from FortiGuard AI-Powered Security Services like advanced malware protection, IPS, sandboxing, and web filtering. 

All FortiSwitch models integrate with FortiAIOps, Fortinet's AI for IT operations tool that provides real-time insights into potential network issues and automates manual tasks.

Fortinet says bringing networking and security into a single solution provides unprecedented visibility into the entire LAN. It enables network access control (NAC) functionality, like profiling and onboarding new users and devices, at no extra charge. 

Fortinet has been recognised as a Visionary in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Wired and Wireless LAN Infrastructure for three consecutive years and as a Gartner Peer Insights Customers' Choice for Enterprise Wired and Wireless LAN Infrastructure for six years in a row.

Jeff Howlett, Chief Information Officer, Meredith College, says: "Our campus environment supports thousands of students and faculty, and Fortinet switches helped us modernise our infrastructure to offer the consistent connectivity and Power-over-Ethernet they need." 

"By managing all of our switches through FortiGate NGFWs, we consolidated point products into a unified platform that offers more visibility into potential security risks than we've ever had before." 

Ryan Ryszka, Security Systems Engineer at Mainline Information Systems, says: "Our customers need robust solutions that can scale with their connectivity needs, especially within high-performance networking." 

"By partnering with Fortinet, Mainline can offer next-generation switches with the access, uplink, and power organisations need, as well as a pathway to a simplified and secure platform for their entire LAN. The FortiSwitch can stand on its own but where it really shines is when paired with other solutions within the Fortinet Security Fabric."