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Fortinet Claims Industry's First SD-WAN ASIC
Fortinet Claims Industry's First SD-WAN ASIC
Security specialist Fortinet announced what it claims is the industry's first application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) for the burgeoning software-defined wide-area networking (SD-WAN) space.
The SoC4 SD-WAN ASIC anchors new security-driven networking initiatives for the increasingly complex enterprise WAN edge that include the FortiGate 100F Appliance powered by the new chip, along with new SD-WAN features included in the FortiOS 6.2 operating system and the Fortinet 360 Protection Services bundle.
The company published a blog post this month that speaks to that aforementioned complexity on the WAN edge that is challenging enterprise networking.
"The challenge is that innovation is struggling to keep up with demand," the company said. "In the case of the branch office, interconnectivity across complex and dynamically shifting networks means that traditional MPLS connections are simply too rigid. And even when those connections are replaced with an SD-WAN solution, the promise of a fully connected branch is increasingly being restricted by the performance limitations of the SD-WAN solution in place -- both in terms of raw bandwidth as well as its ability to manage the complex and dynamically changing meshed VPN overlay required to support dynamic and secure interconnectivity."
To address that challenge, Fortinet said it seeks to meet enterprise demands for:
- High-performance connections
- Fully integrated security
- Application-centric controls
- WAN optimization
- Routing that support the seamless connect of the WAN Edge to the local branch LAN
"The WAN edge is now a part of digital attack surfaces, but the edge of your network must never be a bottleneck," exec John Maddison said in a statement. "For branch offices, the ability to provide best-of-breed WAN Edge -- including SD-WAN, WAN optimization, security and orchestration -- with optimal performance and security is critical to enable the digital experience. Fortinet's SoC4 SD-WAN ASIC allows organizations to realize security-driven networking whether they have 100 or 10,000 branch offices."
About the Author
David Ramel is an editor and writer at Converge 360.