Fortinet, a global leader in broad, automated and integrated cybersecurity solutions, has announced that Arista Networks, a leading provider of software-defined cloud networking solutions for large data centre, storage and computing environments, has joined the Fortinet Fabric-Ready Partner Program.
The announcement marks an expansion of the existing relationship between Fortinet and Arista, and further demonstrates an aligned commitment to securing the modern dynamic data centre and cloud networks.
By leveraging the programmability of Arista’s EOS with the Fortinet Security Fabric, Arista DirectFlow Assist enables scale-out architecture where the switch can offload traffic from the firewall, allowing network administrators to size the firewall based on normal traffic patterns rather than having to over-engineer for exceptional traffic, enabling greater scalability and cost savings.
By combining the Fortinet Security Fabric with the extensibility of the Arista cloud networking solutions, including the Arista CloudVision Macro-Segmentation Services (MSS), modern data centres are now able to meet their security needs with even greater flexibility, control and automation.
John Maddison, Senior Vice President Products and Solutions, Fortinet, said: “As data centre network speeds rapidly increase, security needs to seamlessly scale to match throughput demands.
“By integrating Arista’s Extensible Operating System (EOS) and CloudVision with the broad and automated capabilities of the Fortinet Security Fabric, our joint customers benefit from greater scalability, control and cost savings by mapping their security architecture to network traffic requirements.
“We are excited to welcome Arista Networks to our Fabric-Ready Program and deliver continued integrations that advance security management and automation for our customers’ data centre and cloud networks.”
Collaborating for Greater Network Security Control, Automation and Scale
Massive scale and growth of services is effectively driving a re-architecture of the Internet to support bandwidth-hungry consumers.
As data centre network speeds increase, security appliances, such as firewalls, need to scale to match these new throughput levels.
The integration of the Fortinet Security Fabric with Arista’s EOS, a network operating system with single-image consistency across hardware platforms and application extensibility, provides a joint solution that enables greater security management and automation of scale-out architecture that best maps to network traffic requirements.
Arista EOS runs on an Arista switch and integrates with the advanced security capabilities of a Fortinet FortiGate enterprise firewall to dynamically offload and provide seamless control over network forwarding to the FortiGate. This integration allows dynamic security policies to be applied in the network, enabling data centres to meet their security needs with greater scale and performance.
Additionally, the Arista Networks’ CloudVision MSS will integrate with FortiManager to automate advanced security service insertion for data centres. MSS provides a flexible, software-driven network service to insert FortiGate and other security components into the path of traffic, regardless of whether the service device or workload is physical or virtual.
By working together, Arista and Fortinet are extending the Fortinet Security Fabric into hybrid data centres to enable consistent security policy orchestration and enforcement, combined with high-performance scalability to secure today’s most elastic and dynamic environments.
Ed Chapman, Vice President Business Development and Alliances, Arista Networks, said: “Our open standards-based approach to cloud networking enables us to extend our software programmable capabilities to leading technology providers, such as Fortinet, for security deployment in dynamic environments. The combination of the Fortinet Security Fabric with the extensibility of the Arista EOS platform brings the scale, agility and automation required, across the data centre enterprise.”
Fortinet Fabric-Ready Partner Program: Partnering to Solve Today’s Security Challenges
The Fabric-Ready Partner Program opens the functionality of the Fortinet Security Fabric to complementary solutions. As part of the programme, Arista and Fortinet will work together to continuously validate technology integration with the Security Fabric, as well as share roadmaps for consistent interoperability, and will benefit from joint go-to-market initiatives.
The Fabric-Ready Program enables customers and channel partners to have greater confidence in their existing technology investments and Security Fabric offerings knowing that security solutions are proactively validated and ready for deployment. This integration reduces deployment times and technical support demands while delivering enhanced interoperability for more effective and responsive end-to-end security.
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