Fortinet’s operating system, FortiOS, is the foundation of the Fortinet Security Fabric, an OS designed to consolidate many technologies and use cases into a simplified, single policy and management framework.
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Windows Server
Score 8.5 out of 10
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Pricing
FortiOS
Windows Server
Editions & Modules
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Offerings
Pricing Offerings
FortiOS
Windows Server
Free Trial
No
No
Free/Freemium Version
No
No
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No
No
Entry-level Setup Fee
No setup fee
No setup fee
Additional Details
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Community Pulse
FortiOS
Windows Server
Features
FortiOS
Windows Server
Operating System
Comparison of Operating System features of Product A and Product B
FortiOS is a great platform for deploying multiple FortiNet products and solutions in your environment that are operated under a single management console such as FortiManager. Automation and Orchestration become a reality with its simple API and FortiOS's ability to work with 3rd party API capabilities. FortiOS makes it simple to operate Fortinet's next-generation firewall features such as intrusion detection, SD-WAN, and Identity then consolidates them under a common management interface.
Windows Server and Active Directory is very robust and stable, it has been a staple in every IT environment I have worked in during my career. Junior to Intermediate admins can learn Windows Server easily, the user interfaces make administration tasks very easy as well as the documentation available through a vast amount of resources. There are other Operating Systems available with no GUI which has a smaller attack surface, faster update installation and reboot time. Windows Server does have the ability to remove the desktop experience, however it is not something I have had experience with and I believe most administrators choose not to remove it.
Microsoft needs to minimize the update frequency by making the product more secure. It can become very exhausting trying to keep updated if you don't have a dedicated support team. It can become challenging where the business is unable to allow downtime for reboots as part of the update process.
Prone to security and audit vulnerabilities.
The operating system needs more CPU and memory resources compared to other options such as Linux.
Understanding the licensing model can be abit confusing.
Comes with a standard firewall, but not the most secured one available. Would suggest using a more secured firewall as part of your antivirus software.
Due to the number of vulnerabilities and the operating system being a target for hackers, anti-virus software is a must.
I've carefully reviewed the servers and services currently running on Windows Server 2012, and given the opportunity would renew them as is going forward. There are two systems I currently have in place, one is a very large Linux implementation for a large ecommerce site, and one is a very large backup solution front ended by FTP servers running Linux. Neither are well suited for Windows, but the overall network infrastructure is and will be Windows Server for the foreseeable future.
Anyone new to IT could easily use the familiar Desktop Experience (GUI) version because we all know how to use Windows, whether a client or server version. Once an IT user is more comfortable with the operating system, they can move on to the Core version, which is the way to go in almost all situations.
Microsoft's support is hugely wide-ranging from articles online to having to contact them directly for the more serious issues. In recent years when I have contacted them directly, I have found the support o be excellent as I have found myself connected to very knowledgeable people in the field in which I needed the support. The online support available is vast and I tend to find most of the time that there is always someone out there who has had the same issue as me in the past and knows something about how to resolve it! This is the advantage of using industry standard and long-established systems such as Windows Server.
Make sure that you have detailed processes in place for every server instance you plan to install/upgrade, if possible get the base OS loaded and Windows Updates applied ahead of time, and if using a VM take a snapshot prior to installing each role, as well as along the way.
FortiOS was easy to learn and came with our Firewall purchase, therefore it was the logical choice. It became evident early on that the FortiOS and security fabric would make our migration quicker and easier from our current legacy platforms. Utilizing tools such as FortiConverter allowed for virtually error-free migrations.
They are different experiences, and while the other solutions offer enterprise-grade stability and, in some cases, address Windows server shortcomings (such as patching), they all do the trick, but the other solutions require a deeper technical background/configuration of items at the command line, which some people are not fully comfortable with.
