FortiManager vs. OpenNMS Meridian

FortiManager is well suited for larger organizations which require unified configurations and IT departments that need quick turn around on firewall related tickets. I believe MSPs can also benefit with the use of the VDOM feature, if strict separation between clients is needed. FortiManager wouldn't be ideal for 1-3 site operations, unless their configurations are extremely complex or have a high number of active users.

Incentivized

I would recommend all system administrators use some form of network monitoring if they are not already doing so, and I'd definitely recommend people consider OpenNMS if they're shopping around. Small businesses will benefit from the low-cost of entry (it's free!), whilst getting all the enterprise features. Larger businesses can benefit from paid support plans.

However, there's no getting around the fact that you will require some advanced networking and sysadmin knowledge to get the most out of OpenNMS, or at least, be prepared for a steep learning curve. If you don't have the resources to devote this time initially, you may struggle.

Incentivized

• Centralized FortiGate FW Management in a single console
• Available physical, virtual, or cloud deployment
• Single console for next-generation FW features
• Multiple Administrative Domains

Incentivized

• Report on SLA
• Group network areas
• Discovery of elements

Incentivized

• Various bugs: The software is buggy, and if you don't have a good understanding of it's underlaying operation, you can get confused or stuck when pushing a configuration. There are lots of little quirks you will have to learn, which are not described in any documentation.
• Conflict resolution: Occasionally, during larger changes, bringing new devices in, pushing a config will fail due to dependencies, conflicts, or other software bugs. This is somewhat time consuming because the error messages provided aren't descriptive
• CLI Options: Some configuration changes require creating scripts that execute on each device, and can't be done via the GUI

Incentivized

• We've had a few issues with delayed alerting.
• I haven't quite figured out how to make topologies work yet, but I haven't spent a ton of time on it either.
• We've also had a bit of trouble importing some MIBs, but that usually boiled down to working with the vendor to make sure we had the right MIBs and dependencies.

Incentivized

FortiManager is the best choice for managing numerous FortiGate firewalls. It allows for easy integration into ServiceNow and automates simple repetitive tasks that are very straightforward. Role-based access control is easy to enable and you can get quite granular with user permissions. Administrative Domains help segregate firewall management and compliance within the FortiManager console, by almost any classification method that makes sense to your organization.

Incentivized

OpenNMS's more attractive GUI and its price break were the main reasons our company chose to explore and use this product. However, it never managed to actually replace Nagios which had a much more established hold within the company. Perhaps we were over-monitoring, but our company claimed a $100k loss per hour of downtime.

Incentivized

• Significant reduction in new firewall deployment turn around time, 50% reduction
• Reduction in time spent on website access related IT support tickets. Avg 5 minutes from response to close
• Reduction in time spent by IT team for setting up WFH employees to allow working over SSL VPN.

Incentivized

• Initial adoption required quite a lot of resources and time to get everything right. Totally worth it for us; just be prepared for a gradual process that will get better and better with time.
• Once setup and running smoothly, it provides us with all the reporting we could hope for, at near zero cost.
• With OpenNMS, we're able to offer a much more reliable service to our customers, and spend a lot less time dealing with issues.

Incentivized