According to the unified threat management (UTM) and security appliance specialist, the SOC architecture combines a traditional CPU system with the latest developments in the company's FortiASIC processors and network interfaces.
By combining all of these resources, Fortinet claims that it can create a more efficient content inspection technology than the competition and produce a single appliance capable of handling 1Gbps data throughput.
The interesting aspect of this development, however, is that Fortinet is planning to offer its high-speed UTM technology into the middle-to-low-end segment of the company appliance market, rather than the high-end enterprise side of the business.
As reported previously by Infosecurity, this move into the SME segment of the security appliance market includes support for 3G-based communications and this functionality can be seen on the first SOC-driven appliance, the FortiGate 60C series, from the company.
The 60C appliance series, Infosecurity notes, incorporates an SDHC card slot and ExpressCard slot for 3G mobile broadband communications, as well as 4GB of SDHC storage for event logging.
The ExpressCard slot supports a 3G wireless card for secure mobile deployments or redundant WAN connections to ensure alternative routing in the event of the landline broadband connection going down.
Chris Simmons, Fortinet's director of product manager, told Infosecurity that the move to 1Gbps data throughput support on a chip is a significant move for his company.
"We're now operating in the sub-$1000 appliance section of the market and this market tends to be very price sensitive. Moving to these kinds of speeds – and staying within this price band – places us ahead of the competition", he said.
"We've also been able to move to a fanless architecture for the 60C, since the RISC chip architecture runs a lot cooler – this is another area in which we're ahead of competition" he added.
So how long before the competition catches up with this SOC technology?, we asked Simmons.
"Probably 6 to 8 months", he replied, adding that other advances are also coming down the pipe from his company, which as a 6-/12- and 24-month roadmap for its new security appliances.
Simmons went on to say that moving to a cooler-running and fanless architecture means there is less to go wrong, which translates to a lower failure rate for the company's appliances.
And this, in turn, means that there are significant cost savings in not having to replace a security kit at the customer's location – all of which helps to keep the price of the appliances down, he explained.