FortiManager questions

[kinropags]

I'm looking into FortiNets and see you can add each device to the cloud for remote management for free which seems great. However I've also seen people recommending FortiManager if managing a few firewalls.

1. What's the difference between them? Does FortiManager allow you to update multiple devices at once? Whereas cloud is individual?

2. I cant see pricing for FortiManager but see its available in cloud, vm or appliance. Cloud would be best suited for us but wheres the pricing for it?

[Anthony_E]

Hello kinropags,

Thanks a lot for using Community Forum.

I share with you the FortiManager guide:

https://docs.fortinet.com/product/fortimanager/7.2

In this guide, you will find a lot of information that could answer your question.

Do not hesitate to come back to us if you further information.

Regards,

[Debbie_FTNT]

Hey kinropags,

as a short overview:

FortiGate Cloud allows you to manage FortiGates individually (you can essentially push configuration from the cloud to FortiGate and don't need to log into the FortiGate directly), but each FortiGate is by itself (or just in the cluster, if you have an HA setup), and there aren't really options to push configuration to multiple FortiGates.

FortiManager (hardware, VM, Cloud) allows you manage FortiGates individually or in groups - it works with policy packages (a set of policies) that you can push to one or more FortiGates; if you have a setup where you want a number of FortiGates with the same or very similar configuration this can be very useful. In addition, policy objects (firewall users/addresses/groups/profile etc) are in a database and you can use the same across multiple FortiGates without having to create it again (if you want to use the same users/groups) in multiple FortiGates for example.

FortiManager Cloud in particular is a FortiManager instance hosted by Fortinet to which you can get access with a subscription, to manage your FortiGates with full FortiManager features without having to set up a FortiManager (VM or hardware) in your own environment. Your FortiManager instance is isolated from other customer's instances.

Regarding pricing, this can vary; you can reach out to Fortinet Sales to get a quote.