SUNNYVALE, Calif., April 22, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- John Maddison, EVP of product and solutions at Fortinet 
“Organizations can’t afford to leave security as an afterthought when it comes to SD-WAN. More and more customers recognize this as they select Fortinet’s FortiGate Secure SD-WAN solution for its SD-WAN functionalities combined with advanced security built into one single offering. Complexity is a hindrance to organizations’ agility and scalability, but by providing an integrated solution that meets various WAN services needs, Fortinet is uniquely removing complexity and easing branch operations.”

News Summary
Fortinet® (NASDAQ: FTNT), a global leader in broad, integrated and automated cybersecurity solutions, today announced that four academic institutions in Canada, including District School Board Niagara, London District Catholic School Board, Kawartha Pine Ridge District School Board and Upper Grand District School Board, are significantly improving WAN performance and visibility through the deployment of Fortinet’s FortiGate Secure SD-WAN solution. These four academic institutions join other customers worldwide in reaping the benefits of Fortinet’s Secure SD-WAN solution that combines best-of-breed security and SD-WAN functionalities to alleviate complexity in their infrastructure and significantly reduce costs for reallocation of budget to other mission critical initiatives.

Companies deploying SD-WAN use over 50 percent more bandwidth than those who have not deployed it. Their bandwidth needs are also growing at twice the rate of companies using traditional WANs according to a recent IHS survey report. Academic institutions are not an exception as they increasingly require quicker yet safer internet to meet the needs of their students, staff and faculty while also facing the challenge of a growing number of IoT devices that rely on the network.

Backed by third-party testing, Fortinet’s Secure SD-WAN solution is fulfilling the need for more and faster bandwidth while ensuring advanced security through one centralized console. As one of the only solutions in the industry that combines security with SD-WAN functionality, Fortinet’s Secure SD-WAN solution is fully integrated, mitigating security risks, to ensure integrity of connected resources without compromising performance. As a result, the District School Board Niagara, London District Catholic School Board, Kawartha Pine Ridge District School Board and Upper Grand District School Board have all selected Fortinet’s FortiGate Secure SD-WAN offerings to deliver high performing WAN and LAN services, including SD-Branch, while keeping their end users’ data safe.

Supporting Quotes:

“Leveraging Fortinet’s SD-WAN solution, District School Board Niagara has been able to provide our staff and students with a stable, feature rich and secure network environment, including use of IoT devices in the classroom and schools. We’ve been able to deploy Fortinet’s premium technology while still lowering our broadband and fiber costs. The savings we’ve achieved as a result has allowed DSB Niagara to redirect funds toward educational priorities for all students in DSBN. This includes STEM programs, such as our iHub Academy and our IT4 Learning Team, elective programs for students focusing on artificial intelligence, machine learning, robotics, threat management, etc.”
-- Dino Miele, CIO, District School Board of Niagara

“We been using a cloud-first approach for several years as part of our digital transformation journey. As part of our Ministry of Education Broadband Modernization Project, an initiative to transition all Ontario schools to SD-WAN, we’ve had to speed up this process while connecting each of our schools directly to the internet. After going through the vendor evaluation process, we selected FortiGate Secure SD-WAN because it provides best-of-breed SD-WAN and security features in one single offering. As a result, we’ve been able to reduce complexity at the school level and have single-pane-of-glass visibility across all our locations. We’ve seen a significant reduction in the total cost of ownership for our WAN.”
-- Chris Dale, Manager of Innovative and Collaborative Technology Services, London District Catholic School Board

 “Kawartha Pine Ridge District School Board was looking to reduce our WAN cost through a SD-WAN solution. In our search, we found most solutions are expensive and do not provide the NGFW security capabilities we require. We chose Fortinet’s FortiGate Secure SD-WAN over competitors because it provides us with what we feel is the best SD-WAN solution while also providing superior security features in one console. In addition to lowering the WAN cost, Fortinet also enabled us to reduce complexity and the ability to prioritize critical applications.”
-- Dan Fitzgerald, Chief Information Officer, Kawartha Pine Ridge District School Board

 “Upper Grand District School Board has been successfully using FortiGate Secure SD-WAN appliances for the past eighteen months to meet both our internet bandwidth and security needs. We have kept our operational costs steady while simultaneously meeting the increasing internet capacity requirement at each school.  The centralized management console, FortiManager, ensures that we can efficiently monitor, configure, and implement our security policies to all of the FortiGate Secure SD-WAN appliances.”
-- John McCormick, Associate Chief Information Officer, Upper Grand District School Board

Additional Resources

• Watch this video to learn more on how Fortinet securing the District School Board of Niagara
• Read more about our SD-WAN customer momentum here.
• Learn more about Fortinet’s security-first approach to SD-WAN here.
• Find out why FortiGate SD-WAN Received NSS Labs Recommended Rating.
• Learn more about FortiGuard Labs and the FortiGuard Security Services portfolio.
• Sign up for the weekly FortiGuard Threat Intelligence Briefs.
• Read more about our Network Security Expert program and Network Security Academy program.
• Find out more information about our FortiVets program.
• Read more about the Fortinet Security Fabric or the Third Generation of Network Security.
• Follow Fortinet on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram. 

About Fortinet
Fortinet (NASDAQ: FTNT) secures the largest enterprise, service provider, and government organizations around the world. Fortinet empowers its customers with intelligent, seamless protection across the expanding attack surface and the power to take on ever-increasing performance requirements of the borderless network - today and into the future. Only the Fortinet Security Fabric architecture can deliver security without compromise to address the most critical security challenges, whether in networked, application, cloud or mobile environments. Fortinet ranks #1 in the most security appliances shipped worldwide and more than 385,000 customers trust Fortinet to protect their businesses. Learn more at http://www.fortinet.com, the Fortinet Blog, or FortiGuard Labs.    

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Source: Fortinet, Inc.