FortiGate-as-a-Service: Cloud Agility at ASIC Speed

Unlike virtual firewalls, FGaaS runs on dedicated, ASIC-powered FortiGate appliances. Organizations that use this service aren’t just renting a VM—they are consuming real hardware, delivered as a service and fully managed by Fortinet. This approach combines the reliability and performance of physical infrastructure with the agility of cloud-based delivery.

These appliances are hosted in Fortinet’s global data centers, strategically located to provide low-latency access, regional availability, and built-in redundancy. See supported data center locations here.

FGaaS: Built for Versatility

FGaaS is not a one-size-fits-all offering. It supports a wide range of deployment scenarios, enabling organizations to address region-specific, sector-specific, and scale-specific requirements without building or managing physical infrastructure:

• Global SD-WAN Hubs without owning infrastructure: Deploy dedicated SD-WAN hubs across regions without investing in racks, ISPs, or overlays. FGaaS nodes integrate with Fortinet’s SD-WAN fabric and are hosted in low-latency data centers connected to Internet Exchange (IX) points.

• MSPs, MSSPs, and Telcos: Expand service coverage without building new infrastructure. FGaaS enables rapid regional deployment, fast customer onboarding, and scalable multitenant services—all hosted and maintained by Fortinet.

• Distributed SMBs: FGaaS reduces operational burden for smaller teams without compromising protection by centralizing security operations with advanced threat protection, incident response, and full-stack visibility.

• Remote OT networks: Secure isolated sites, such as wind farms, oil platforms, electric vehicle (EV) charging stations, and substations. FGaaS supports OT-specific signatures to enable real-time protection at the edge.

• FortiSASE Sovereign deployments: Meet data residency and sovereignty requirements by deploying local FGaaS nodes as FortiSASE Sovereign enforcement points. Keep data in-country while applying zero-trust policies.
• Replacing underperforming FWaaS or proxy solutions: Address performance gaps and security limitations with a high-throughput, hardware-backed alternative to legacy cloud firewalls and proxies.
• Secure private access (SPA) service connection hubs: Use FGaaS firewalls as service connection hubs for FortiSASE. Extend secure access and resolve challenges in hybrid and remote deployments.
• Additional use cases:
  • Deploy disaster recovery nodes without maintaining secondary infrastructure
  • Establish regional ZTNA gateways for scalable access control
  • Centralize logging and management with FortiManager-as-a-Service and FortiAnalyzer-as-a-Service
  • Enable wireless controller and policy enforcement from the same platform

FGaaS instances can be deployed globally in minutes, delivering hardware-grade security without the cost or complexity of managing hardware infrastructure.

Why Organizations Choose FGaaS

FGaaS eliminates many of the operational and financial barriers that come with traditional hardware deployments. It delivers the performance of Fortinet’s purpose-built appliances with the flexibility of a service-based model. The result: faster rollout, simplified operations, and predictable costs.
 

FGaaS removes the need for data center space, HVAC systems, power management, and dedicated hardware support teams. Security infrastructure becomes faster to deploy, easier to manage, and ready to scale with your business.

What’s New and What’s Coming

FGaaS continues to evolve, with new capabilities already available and others coming soon on the roadmap.

Available now:

• Expanded global data center coverage
• FortiGate SPA integration via FortiSASE
• FortiManager-as-a-Service offering
• UI improvements for enhanced usability

Coming soon:

We are expanding our fully managed, hardware-backed services under the FGaaS model, including advanced analytics and reporting capabilities, support for sovereign deployments, and enhanced data sovereignty and privacy protections—delivering greater visibility, compliance, and control across diverse environments.

These updates extend the FGaaS footprint across more use cases while upholding the performance, consistency, and control Fortinet customers expect.

TCO Reality Check

One of the key advantages of FGaaS is its predictable OpEx model, which replaces the high upfront investment and overhead of traditional hardware deployments. Organizations can choose between monthly billing through FortiPoints or annual subscriptions using standard SKUs, offering flexibility for both short-term and long-term needs.

In a typical CapEx model, customers must invest in hardware, colocation space, HVAC systems, power, networking, compliance, and ongoing life-cycle management. These requirements often involve dedicated IT and facilities teams, with added complexity in capacity planning and procurement cycles.

With FGaaS, all of this is abstracted into a single, managed service. Fortinet hosts and maintains the hardware across its global data center footprint. Customers gain the benefits of real infrastructure without the operational burden.

The result is faster time to value, accelerated rollout, simplified operations, and built-in high availability and business continuity.

To check the latest supported services, SKUs, and hardware models, please refer to the FGaaS Ordering Guide.

The Bottom Line

FGaaS is more than a hardware subscription—it’s a new operational model for delivering secure, high-performance networking on a global scale. Whether supporting enterprise expansion, enabling Telco edge services, or powering MSSP offerings, FGaaS provides a unified, service-based approach that combines full-stack NGFW, SD-WAN, ZTNA, and disaster recovery.

It delivers the reliability of Fortinet hardware, the flexibility of cloud, and the simplicity of SaaS—without compromise.

Ready to take the next step? Explore FGaaS and discover how hardware-backed security as a service can transform your operations.