Steven Zolman

Oct. 24,2023 | Cyber Security, Fortinet

Fortinet is a leading provider of security solutions, but its costs can be high, especially for large enterprise organizations. As a result, many companies are starting to see the value of Fortinet's subscriptions becoming misaligned with the cost.

Below we walk you through some of the top tips to review to ensure you are maximizing your investment.

Here are our top 10 tips:

• Take a close look at how you are using your Fortinet products and identify any areas where you can reduce your usage. For example, you may be able to reduce your bandwidth usage by using Fortinet's traffic shaping features.

• If you are not using all of the features of your Fortinet products, disable them. This will help to reduce your subscription costs.

• Fortinet regularly releases firmware updates for its products that include security patches and performance improvements. Be sure to install the latest firmware updates to ensure that you are getting the most out of your Fortinet products.

• Fortinet offers a variety of cloud-based security services that can be a cost-effective alternative to on-premises solutions. For example, FortiGate Cloud is a cloud-based firewall that can protect your network from a variety of threats.

• Fortinet offers a variety of bundles that can save you money if you need multiple products. For example, the Fortinet Security Fabric Bundle includes a variety of security products, such as firewalls, intrusion detection systems, and web filtering.

• Fortinet offers a variety of discounts on subscriptions, such as multi-year discounts and volume discounts. Be sure to price benchmark your Fortinet pricing with reliable market intelligence to determine if you’re getting the best pricing available.

• You can save money on your Fortinet subscriptions by optimizing your deployment. For example, you can consolidate your FortiGate firewalls and use FortiAnalyzer to centralize logging and reporting.

• A good Fortinet partner can help you to optimize your Fortinet deployment and save money on your subscriptions. Be sure you evaluate partners carefully as they generally paid by Fortinet on the value of your deal, so the clear incentive is to make your deal as big as possible, so be sure to balance this with commercial assistance in getting the best commercial deal possible.

• If you have already tried most of these recommendations and you are still unhappy with the costs, there are a number of other security suppliers that offer products and pricing. If you are not satisfied with the value you are receiving from your Fortinet subscriptions, you may want to consider switching to a different security supplier.

See our Top 5 Suppliers that compete favorable with Fortinet at better pricing below.

10. Negotiate with Fortinet:

• As a large enterprise organization, you have more bargaining power than smaller businesses. You can use this to your advantage to negotiate better pricing on your subscriptions. Be prepared to walk away from the negotiation if you don't get the deal you want. Engaging NET(net) to help you minimize cost and risk and maximize the realization of value and benefit often results in savings of 30% or more.

Top 5 Suppliers that compete favorably with Fortinet at better pricing:

• Palo Alto Networks
• Checkpoint Software Technologies
• Cisco Systems
• SonicWall
• Sophos

It is important to note that this is just a small sample of the many security suppliers that offer products that compete favorably with Fortinet. As most of you know, when choosing a security supplier, it is important to compare all the features, pricing, and support of different products to find the best solution for your bespoke needs and perhaps more importantly, a supplier that will work with you on your terms.

You don’t have to sacrifice security to get a good deal with Fortinet (or many others). But you do have to engage them directly and be armed with the market data and product knowledge that will put you in a favored position. We would always recommend that you seek outside advice and guidance if there are questions in any of the above areas. Small investments of time and money early will pay huge dividends down the road by making sure your company has not made a really bad investment that they’re stuck with for years to come. Contact us with any questions on Fortinet or any other supplier issue you may be having.

About NET(net)  

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