What is the primary purpose of a FortiGate firewall?

The primary purpose of a FortiGate firewall is to provide network security by enforcing security policies. This involves inspecting and filtering traffic based on defined rules, preventing unauthorized access, and protecting against threats such as malware, intrusions, and other attacks. The firewall acts as a barrier between trusted internal networks and untrusted external networks, ensuring that only legitimate traffic can pass through according to the organization’s security posture.

While managing bandwidth allocation, monitoring hardware performance, and facilitating network diagnostics are important functions within network management, they are not the central role of a firewall. Instead, these tasks might be carried out by other specialized tools or features that can work in conjunction with the FortiGate to enhance overall network management and performance. However, the fundamental role of the FortiGate firewall remains focused on enforcing security policies and safeguarding the network environment against potential threats.