Cisco ACI vs FortiGate

• The REST API allows your to programmatically interact with the network and make massive changes very quickly when needed.
• The API allows you to tie together Server Provisioning tools, storage provisioning tools, into an orchestration platform such as Ansible to streamline new deployments and builds.
• New Deployments are extremely simple once you've worked out your programatic deployment process. We can deploy new clients/tenants in seconds rather than days or weeks like it used to take.
• Replacing failed switches/apics/etc is also extremely easy.
• Tightly couple the underlying Network Infrastructure to VMWare Deployments to allow VMs to move anywhere in the datacenter at the drop of a hat.

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• My favorite aspect of the Fortigate product is the ease of use. The GUI is very easy to get around. The products rules and configuration are easy to learn and apply. The informational tools are easy to look at and produce results that are intuitive and quick to assess.
• Another great attribute of the FortiGate product was reasonable pricing for the product and then the ongoing support. Living in the SMB space with tight governmental budgets is a huge factor in all my decisions. When a company like Fortinet comes along and produces good products at very reasonable prices it is good for SMB companies like mine. Many vendors price their products in a fashion that is beyond consideration by SMBs like myself.
• Support is always a big factor in consideration of any product for our organization. Fortinet support has been extremely good. They have provided an onsite engineer at no cost to help us design, implement and maintain new products when needed. The call support has also been excellent, with quick response times and knowledgeable technicians.

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• Cost is always a challenge and ACI is no different.
• The linkage between ACI and Tetration has been rebranded since the initial marketeering of it and this has caused confusion and in some cases diminished the business case as a result.
• The fact that Cisco has developed multiple Orchestrators of their differing network stacks causes issues when trying to pull together a singular approach to orchestration across a Cisco e-2-e network in an Enterprise.

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• Fortigate's SSL VPN client isn't available via MSI with an easy options for mass deployment and configuration out of the box. You need to have a Fortinet Developer Network license to create a custom deploy image.
• Fortinet's after hours support is overseas and is adequate. Not stellar.

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• So far we havent been able to leverage al the positives of the ACI infrastructure like Open API and RBAC so it's difficult to comment.
• A negative I would think of is the change in the design implementation for Datacenter Interconnectivity.

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• (Positive) The network is secured.
• (Positive) As an analyst, I have to convince C level executives regarding protection from threats, intrusion, and productivity of the network resources. And I am achieving all the segments with ease of access.
• (Neutral) The unavailability of post-sale service requires improvements. But due to the vast community of users and excellent documentation of the product, hides the lack of post-sale service availability.

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