Security

Review: Fortigate Fortinet 60E Gives Schools High-Level Security

Designed for drag-and-drop security at satellite and regional offices, this device punches above its weight.

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John Breeden II is an award-winning reviewer and public speaker with 20 years of experience covering technology.

Common security concerns for K–12 districts, particularly the frequent targeting for cyberattacks, are generally not balanced by increased budgets for defensive technology or talent. And although smaller facilities have become front-line targets, many regional and satellite schools must make do with shared IT resources and personnel.

The Fortinet FortiGate 60E security appliance is a good choice for providing cybersecurity protection to smaller schools and regional offices without the need for intense operating expenses or dedicated IT experts. It’s a tiny — smaller than 1U — appliance designed for installation at the gateway to a remote or small facility.

Making Cybersecurity Easy to Manage

There is a lot of cybersecurity packed into this small appliance. The 60E offers anti-virus analysis, application filtering, ASIC VPN, firewall protection, an intrusion prevention system, URL filtering, VPN support and web threat protection. It works almost as soon as it’s plugged in and connected to the wired gateway.

Most firewalls and next-generation security appliances are difficult to manage, especially ones that pack multiple features into a single box. Fortinet simplified those functions, using a unified operating system called FortiOS 5 that drives each component, paired with a graphical user interface that is easy to control.

It’s also simple to create unique firewall rules for the equipment and user needs of each school, and the 60E can store as many as 5,000 of them. And the fact that each feature shares a common interface means learning how to program one equals proficiency with all the others as well.

Handle Massive Amounts of Session Traffic

The FortiGate 60E is more than capable of handling the kind of traffic generated by a small or even a medium-sized satellite school. In stress testing, it was able to process 25,000 new sessions per second and more than half a million concurrent TCP sessions with no hint of slowdown, and it’s actually rated to go higher.

The total maximum throughput is 3 gigabits per second, which is probably more than any small school will ever need.

Given the capacity, however, facilities could configure and protect up to 10 virtual domains. That could come in handy if different schools or groups want to share space in the same building and need protection that’s tightly configured for their specific needs.

For good protection and ease of use, the Fortinet FortiGate 60E is ready to offer smaller educational facilities big protection without a lot of extra overhead.

Assistance is Available for the FortiGate 60E

The Fortinet FortiGate 60E next-generation security appliance is a powerful defensive tool designed to be dropped into a small or satellite school to provide robust protection against a variety of threats — and it does. But it’s also part of a family of appliances designed to work together for even greater security.

I happened to have some Fortinet gear in the lab from previous reviews, including an email gateway security appliance and a sandboxing tool. Like the FortiGate 60E, they were built around a common architecture that streamlines throughput and prioritizes quick protective actions.

Some satellite sites, such as a school district’s central office, might want a little more protection than the 60E offers, such as the ability to sandbox files. Thankfully, the common interface makes it easy to add in other Fortinet appliances if needed.

Using the graphical interface on the FortiGate 60E, it was easy to set up an automatic process that sent certain files over to the sandbox for deeper analysis. And it was similarly simple to send them back once complete or to program automatic actions on the 60E if any threats were found.

Realistically, the commonality between Fortinet devices these days means that adding new appliances almost feels no more difficult than adding a software module. Most users can probably do it without any special training.

Offices that don’t mind losing a little bit of the baseline simplicity of the FortiGate 60E can easily add more protection to their defenses and then still manage almost everything from a central location.

Fortinet FortiGate 60E

Data Transfer Rate: 3Gbps
Max Concurrent TCP Sessions: 1.3 million
Supported New Sessions: 30,000 per second
Firewall Rules Capacity: 5,000
Max Concurrent SSL VPN Sessions: 100
Dimensions: 6.3x8.5x1.5 inches
Weight: 1.98 pounds