Fortinet Inc. unveiled 12 new products designed to connect and extend Fortinet's integrated security platforms for retail, branch offices and distributed enterprises. Under the umbrella of "Connected UTM," Fortinet's new FortiGate unified threat management appliances, wireless access points, wireless WAN extender, and Ethernet switches provide unparalleled policy and access control, threat protection and business continuity. The foundation for Connected UTM begins with integration and management.

Fortinet's new FortiGate/FortiWiFi-30D-POE, FortiGate/FortiWiFi-60D-POE and FortiGate/FortiWiFi-90D-POE and FortiGate-280D-POE all integrate the full suite of UTM security features plus WiFi access point control, switching, authentication, endpoint management and policy control in a single easy-to-manage device. This consolidated approach allows businesses to enforce policies across a number of device types and provide better security by having these devices plugged into and managed by a single FortiGate. The FG-280D-POE, with a total of 84 ports, was purpose-built for smaller networks (such as retail locations and healthcare facilities) that want to take advantage of the very high port density to eliminate devices in their infrastructure, such as switches.

The next level in the Connected UTM platform incorporates the ability to connect and manage multiple devices through integrated Power over Ethernet (PoE) ports. With this functionality, multiple devices, such as wireless access points,Point of Sale (PoS) devices, network video cameras and video recorders, digital signage, IP telephony systems can be attached and managed from a FortiGate Connected UTM. Managing multiple devices and capabilities through a single security appliance requires high performance hardware to prevent network bottlenecks.

To help accelerate wireless performance, the company also announced two new WiFi access points. The FortiAP-221C and FortiAP-320C support the new 802.11ac wireless standard, which offers data rates in excess of 1 Gbps. This level of performance helps meet higher bandwidth requirements for guest WiFi access without slowing down the performance of critical corporate data.

In addition, by using FortiAP access points or FortiWiFi models, retailers can segment their network in order to provide guest access while maintaining PCI DSS compliance.