Fortinet FortiBridge 2001 Bypass Appliances
Ensuring availability of network resources

Overview:

The FortiBridge-2001 appliance provides bypass functionality to inline security devices, including the FortiGate family of consolidated security systems. Operating in transparent mode during normal operation, these appliances automatically bridge network traffic in the event of a system failure or power outage to ensure mission critical network continuity. The FortiBridge-2001 appliance provides four 10/100/1000 interfaces for fail-to-wire bypass protection.

FortiBridge-2001 Features & Benefits:

• Maximizes network availability and uptime with Fail-to-Wire protection for Gigabit Ethernet networks
• Automatically re-routes traffic in the event of a power outage or event that would cause an inline security device to fail and disrupt availability of the network segment
• The 1-RU appliance form factor allows you to add bypass functionality to any existing inline security system, including FortiGate consolidated security systems
• Remote configuration and monitoring allow you to monitor and control the bypass status of network segments remotely
• Ability to view mode of operation, manually switch the appliance into bypass or normal operation mode, and configure thresholds for automatic bypass fail-to-wire

You are faced with the challenge of securing your network while also ensuring that it is always available. This could mean that you are forced to choose network availability over ensuring that all traffic is inspected for malicious activity. You are already using high availability features of the security infrastructure, where a system fails over to either an active or standby unit. While this can reduce the risk of a network outage and still providing security services, to further reduce the risk of a network outage, additional steps have to be taken. To preserve availability in the event of a power failure or a device malfunction, bypassing the device altogether with a fail-to-wire solution can ensure network continuity at times when security cannot be provided.