Dubai, UAE, July 24, 2011 – Fortinet® (NASDAQ: FTNT) – a leading network security provider and the worldwide leader of unified threat management (UTM) solutions – announced today that Suhail Bahwan Automobiles LLC, part of Suhail Bahwan Automotive Group, a leading automobile dealer and distributor in the Sultanate of Oman, has implemented Fortinet’s FortiGate® to improve internal network security segmentation and policy control, in line with ISO 27001 framework. The company has deployed one Fortigate-310B at its head office primarily for perimeter firewalling, anti-spam and anti-virus, and sixteen FortiGate-50B devices at its branches for web filtering and VPN connectivity with the head office.

“We looked at other security vendors like Juniper and Cisco but selected Fortinet because it is recognized as the leading UTM vendor and provides an effective all-in-one solution,” said Shashank Ghatpande, CIO at Suhail Bahwan Automobiles. “We wanted to ensure our defenses are up to date and are tuned to respond to today’s newest attacks and to the most pressing vulnerabilities. With the Fortinet solution deployed across the company’s network, I am now confident that the threat of information leakage within and outside the organization is highly minimized with minimal management.”

The Fortinet solution, implemented by Bahwan IT, Fortinet’s Gold partner in Oman, replaced the previous Cisco PIX one and currently secures 600 users over multiple sites. The FortiGate-310B integrated multi-threat network security appliance, deployed at the head office, delivers the best price/performance ratio in its class with firewall/VPN speeds that rival other entry point high-end enterprise products at a significantly lower price. On the other hand, the Fortigate-50B appliance is ideally suited for branch offices, offering a full suite of security services and high performance in one hardened platform. In addition to FortiGate, Suhail Bahwan Automobiles deployed FortiManager™ and FortiAnalyzer™ to centrally manage and monitor its network security activities.

The Fortinet solution meets the requirement of the Suhail Bahwan Automobiles in terms of security, as it offers superior protection against threats such as UM/P2P traffic, phishing and pharming and other sophisticated blended threats. Moreover, the solution delivers low total cost of ownership thanks to its simplified management and maintenance.

Bashar Bashaireh, Middle East Regional Director at Fortinet, said: “FortiGate provides powerful network security protection that is easy to operate, ensuring smooth implementation and expediting the knowledge transfer for Suhail Bahwan Automobiles. We have been gaining solid ground in key markets across the Middle East and the successful implementation at leading business organizations such as Suhail Bahwan Automobiles validates the reputation of Fortinet as the network security solutions provider of choice in the region.”