The European FortiCloud Portal
(europe.forticloud.com) is now ready for use. Accounts can now be created directly in either of the two portals. (North America or Europe). Customers are given a choice of which FortiCloud portal they wish to create the account in.
The original URL: https://www.forticloud.com continues to work as always. A new portal https://europe.forticloud.com has been created for customers wishing to use a regional/localised data centre instance.
Why have we done this?
Previously devices in Europe would be viewed through one central portal, hosted in Vancouver. In an ongoing effort to maximise performance, by viewing equipment through a local portal on the European DC rather than viewing through North America the performance of FortiCloud has been enhanced significantly.
Existing Equipment
The majority of devices are registered to the North America Data Centre as that has been the only option for some time. Some customers already have FortiGates that may be using the European data centre as they were allocated based on a Geo IP.
To simplify things, if a user account only has equipment in the North America data centre, then that is all that will be seen upon login.
Equally if the user only has equipment in the European Data centre they will only see the European Data Centre.
If the user has equipment registered in both data centres the user will be prompted at login as to which data centre they want to view.
New Equipment
When a new AP or FortiGate is added to the cloud it will associate with the portal the user is logged in to when the FortiCloud Key is entered. If a FortiGate is configured for the first time manually to connect to the FortiCloud service it will be associated based on the geographic IP. A list of which countries map to which portal can be provided upon request.
Moving Equipment
If a customer wishes to move a device this can be done by following the process below, or contacting CS who will initiate the process with the FortiCloud team. Please note NO HISTORICAL LOGS or configuration will be moved across between instances.
1. Un-Deploy the AP or FortiGate from the current account
2. Delete it from the inventory
3. Create a new account (with a different Email address) in the desired portal.
4. Enter the FortiCloud Key into the new account and reboot the hardware.
This process will allow APs and FortiGates to be moved from one data centre to another
Existing Users
All users can manage equipment in either or both portals, providing there is equipment currently deployed to them in those portals. If the user is currently tied to the North America data centre and has no equipment in the European data centre, then they are not able to use that account to connect to the European data centre. If this is the case, then a new account should be set up on the European portal and the process above for Moving Equipment should be followed. If there is a large number of items to move, then a call to Customer Services may be an easier option.
New Users
When a new user signs up, the system offers a choice of which portal to create the account in. Today, this choice will define where all equipment that user deploys will be managed from.
New International Users
If a user has locations in the USA and Europe they have three options:
1. A single account on the US Data centre for all equipment
2. A single account on the European data centre for all equipment
3. Two accounts, one on each data centre allowing the equipment to be allocated by region.
This is the process as it exists today. There will be further updates in the next few months to improve the overall mechanisms in play so that accounts can be shared/merged with a Single Sign On moving forward.
European Data Centre IP Addresses
There are also new IP Addresses for units connecting to the Europe FortiCloud should a customer wish to create firewall rules – these can be provided upon request.
