FortiConverter - Best Choice
Rating: 10 out of 10
IncentivizedUse Cases and Deployment Scope
FortiConverter is being used for all firewall migrations to FortiGate from legacy platforms. FortiConverter enables a smooth staged migration with minimal to no outages during the cutover windows. We have used it to migrate all Cisco ASA firewalls (virtual and physical) to FortiGate appliances. FortiConverter allows us to properly audit the existing rules and ensure that we do not migrate obsolete, zero hit, and nested or shadow rules to the new platform.
Pros
- Audit existing rulesets from CheckPoint, Cisco, Juniper and other platforms
- Build migration rulesets to FortiGate
- Stages migration before actual cutover
- Reduces or eliminates obsolete and shadow rules
- Simple logic
Cons
- Programming or scripting skills are not needed but highly recommended
- Requires excellent command of REGEX
- Interface Mapping from complex topologies requires a deep understanding of FortiGate interface capabilities and scripting
Likelihood to Recommend
Unless you are rebuilding rules from scratch, FortiConverter is a must-have when migrating legacy rulesets from competing platforms such as Cisco ASA, CheckPoint, Juniper, etc. to FortiGate Appliances. Without FortiConverter, guaranteed there will be some flows you missed and you will be troubleshooting them during your cutover maintenance window. Utilizing FortiConverter, you will minimize such issues as cutover time because you have the ability to stage the new ruleset in advance. Complex topologies and multi-platform migrations require highly skilled consultation from experts that [have] done this several times before.
SR
Shahab Razak
Senior Network Architect in Information Technology at Finastra (5001-10,000 employees)
Vetted Review
3 years of experience