SUNNYVALE, Calif., June 1, 2005 - Fortinet - the pioneer and market leader of Unified Threat Management and only provider of ASIC-accelerated, network-based antivirus firewall systems for real-time network protection- today announced that the Conseil egional d'Ile de France, a government organization covering 11 million inhabitants over 12,000 km², has chosen Fortinet's network security appliances to secure its local area network (LAN) and remote sites against Internet security threats. To manage the wide ranging secure network connectivity at multiple locations, the Conseil égional has deployed the firewall, antivirus and intrusion prevention functionalities offered by the FortiGate systems, in conjunction with Fortinet's FortiGuard Web Filtering Service.

The Conseil egional d'Ile de France counts some 1,200 employees based in four locations across Paris. It is responsible for services to almost 20 percent of the total French population in only two percent of the country's total area, 30 percent of gross domestic product and 22 percent of national employment, 55 percent of national research potential, 17 highly renowned universities and Grandes Ecoles, 21 percent of national exports and 32 percent of imports.

In 2003, due to the exponential rise in Internet usage by its workforce, and hence increased vulnerability to the associated security threats, the local government organization decided to renew its network security infrastructure. It opted to replace its incumbent firewall, which no longer could serve its growing security needs, and to implement a high-availability firewall solution. The Conseil égional also wanted a solution that would enable them to conduct antivirus scanning for web HTTP traffic (to complement its existing mail-based SMTP solution), create multiple DMZs, provide network intrusion detection and prevention, and connect and protect its remote sites with VPNs and individual firewalls.

The Conseil égional's IT security department was challenged to find a solution that could fulfil their multiple security requirements in the most cost-effective way. The latter cost element was extremely important in order to obtain the necessary internal approval in a timely manner, and to avoid having to put out an official market tender, which is required procedure for many government organizations when infrastructural projects require a certain level of expenditure.

Having studied the various options available, the Conseil égional d'Ile de France chose Fortinet's FortiGate systems. The FortiGate systems were selected for their comprehensive functionality necessary to fulfil the security requirements of the government organization and ability to provide impressive price-performance, made possible by a custom-built FortiASIC. The FortiASIC innovation accelerates content inspection in FortiGate systems and complements Fortinet's unique licensing policy that has customers pay for subscription service fees by unit capacity rather than more expensive though common per user fees.

The FortiGate systems were also chosen for their ease of use. The consistent functionality of the integrated security appliances can be managed from a single interface. Feature and function consistency across multiple types of systems is in contrast to the point product solutions the Conseil égional also reviewed that would have been more costly and necessitated far greater operational time management.

The Conseil égional opted to deploy enterprise-class FortiGate-1000 systems on its network, and to equip its remote sites with FortiGate-60 systems. The implementation was carried out in conjunction with system integrator, ADINES, based in Paris, France.

The Conseil égional has carried out a number of performance tests on the FortiGate systems since their implementation. They have found Fortinet's complete content inspection firewall functionality to be far superior to that of the former deep packet inspection solution deployed. The FortiGate systems' antivirus functionality has prevented the Conseil égional from falling victim to any virus or worm attack since installation, even during the peak periods of the virulent virus activity seen in recent months.

Based on the success of the deployment to date, the Conseil égional plans to increase its use of Fortinet technology by extending its network to its partners via a FortiGate-enabled VPN.

"The Conseil égional's investment in a best of class collection of security applications from Fortinet has yielded many benefits, including improved connectivity, improved security, higher performance, immediate cost savings, and simplified administration," said Adam Stein, Fortinet's vice president of corporate marketing. "Fortinet's FortiGate systems are key business enablers that help our customers across both government and large enterprise sectors operate their business with safety and efficiency."

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