CyberRatings.org Announces SD-WAN Test Results for Fortinet

Fortinet Fortigate 100F and 70F models are Recommended.

Austin, TX – October 3, 2023 – CyberRatings.org (CyberRatings), the non-profit entity dedicated to providing confidence in cybersecurity products and services through its research and testing programs, has issued a Recommended Rating for Fortinet’s Software-Defined Wide Area Network (SD-WAN) Fortigate 100F model as a high availability pair at the head-end, along with Fortigate 70F models at corporate headquarters, a regional office, and a retail outlet. A product with the “Recommended” rating has the highest rating assigned by CyberRatings.

SD-WAN technology helps organizations achieve operational savings by enabling remote configuration of new locations rather than requiring engineers to be on site. Many vendors, such as Fortinet, offer zero-touch provisioning, where on site engineering expertise is optional other than the ability to power up the device and connect to the appropriate internal and external links. Once online, the device will call “home” through a cloud configuration service to gather the configuration details.

An SD-WAN offers traditional routing and policy control features including basic application identification, policy controls, stateful network controls and a virtual private network (VPN). It prioritizes applications, has remote configuration capabilities and should have a predictable performance experience for users. SD-WANs have highly resilient remote office connectivity.

To assess the SD-WAN, the traffic content, throughput, transport, and impairments were tailored for each use case to provide insight into how the SD-WAN would perform under various conditions. Management, routing and stateful access control, encryption, application identification and prioritization, WAN maximum capacity, stability and reliability, and rated throughput were all rigorously tested.

“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,” said Vikram Phatak, CEO of CyberRatings.org.

SD-WAN is a component of the Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) security model which integrates multiple security services in a cloud-native platform. The SD-WAN report published today by CyberRatings is part of the independent, third party testing program that CyberRatings provides to the industry at large.

In addition, CyberRatings and MEF, a global industry association of network, cloud, security and technology providers, signed an agreement in August to launch a new SASE Certification Program for MEF technology and service provider members worldwide. The SASE certification program, based upon CyberRatings’ methodologies and test programs, will issue a rating on product and service effectiveness of SD-WAN, Security Service Edge (SSE Threat Protection), Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) and SASE. Participants in the beta program were announced today.

CyberRatings members can read Fortinet’s SD-WAN report here.