SUNNYVALE, Calif., May 30, 2006- Fortinet - the pioneer and leading provider of multi-threat security solutions- today strengthened its high-end product portfolio with the announcement of new load-balancing switch and high-performance security blades for its FortiGate-5000 Series, the world's only AdvancedTCA (ATCA)-compliant security systems. Targeted at telecommunication carriers, managed security service providers (MSSPs), and large organizations with bandwidth-intensive requirements, the FortiController-5208 switch and FortiGate-5005 security blades work together to boost security scalability in 10 gigabit Ethernet (GbE) networked environments.

Multi-Threat Protection for 10G Networks
ising volumes of data traffic, media-rich applications and data center consolidation are driving the need for increased bandwidth scalability and high-speed connections. To accommodate this, MSSPs, carriers, large enterprises and governmental institutions are quickly adopting 10GbE connections for their high-bandwidth networks.

At the same time, security threats are increasing and require multiple methods of network and application layer protection, which can often be taxing to network performance and scalability. Security systems must co-exist in 10GbE environments and perform the required traffic inspection and protection against intrusions, viruses and other types of threats without significantly crippling network performance and scalability.

Fortinet is addressing this challenge with the industry's first multi-threat security system for 10GbE environments. Deployable in the FortiGate-5020 two-slot, 5050 five-slot and 5140 14 -slot modular chassis-based systems, the FortiGate-5005 and FortiController-5208 blades work together to deliver multi-gigabit antivirus, antispyware, firewall, VPN and intrusion prevention system (IPS) performance and scalability.

Flexible Security for Core Network Deployments
The FortiController-5208 blade includes two 10GbE interfaces and eight 1GbE interfaces, making it ideal for high-performance core and data center network deployments. The FortiController-5208 blade also provides switch-based interconnection to distribute traffic to other FortiGate blades and load balances between them for increased performance and scalability. The new FortiGate-5005 blade provides a full range of flexible network security software modules -- including firewall, antivirus, antispyware, intrusion prevention system (IPS), anti-spam, Web content filtering, VPN, and traffic shaping - that can be deployed individually or in a combination of security modules, depending on customer requirements.

Customers can configure FortiGate-5000 systems in a variety of ways to meet a wide range of throughput, reliability, scalability and security requirements through the combination of FortiGate and FortiController ATCA-compliant blades. The Advanced Telecom Computing Architecture, or ATCA, specification is an industry standard for the next generation of carrier grade communications equipment and Fortinet is the only security vendor to offer ATCA-compliant multi-threat security systems. The ATCA standard promises multi-vendor hardware interoperability with third party network vendors and system manufacturers.

"The strong demand for and success of our high-end product offerings among telecommunication carriers, MSSPs and enterprises has helped Fortinet become the fastest-growing network security vendor in the high-end market," said Ken Xie, founder, president and CEO of Fortinet. "Our new FortiController-5208 and FortiGate-5005ATCA blades extend the benefits of our FortiGate-5000 Series to 10GB network environments and increase security performance, scalability and deployment flexibility."

Availability
The FortiController-5208 module and FortiGate-5005 blade are available through a controlled early release program. The product will be made available to customers that meet qualification criteria. General availability is expected in 2H 06.

For more information on Fortinet's FortiGate-5000 Series, please visit: http://www.fortinet.com/products/providers.html