New platform combines ASIC-powered threat protection with cloud-delivered SASE for customer-controlled environments
Fortinet, the global cybersecurity leader driving the convergence of networking and security, has announced the FortiGate 1200G series, the newest addition to the FortiGate G series with FortiSASE Outpost, which brings cloud-delivered security services into customer-controlled environments.
By combining high-performance threat protection, modern connectivity, hardware-rooted platform security, and cloud-delivered security capabilities, the solution gives organisations the flexibility to enforce security where it makes the most business sense. Whether on-premises, at the edge, or in the cloud, security teams can maintain consistent protection, high performance, and simplified operations across hybrid environments.
“The convergence of firewall and SASE technologies is creating a new SASE firewall market built for the realities of today’s hybrid world,” said Ken Xie, Founder, Chairman of the Board, and CEO of Fortinet.
“Fortinet anticipated this shift by building FortiGate and FortiSASE on FortiOS and investing in proprietary ASIC technology that delivers security and performance at scale from day one. The FortiGate 1200G with FortiSASE Outpost capability advances this vision by combining local enforcement and cloud-delivered security to address customers’ evolving sovereignty, performance, and AI infrastructure requirements.”
High-performance security built for AI infrastructure
Growing AI adoption, encrypted traffic, and hybrid infrastructure are reshaping enterprise networks, and organisations need to inspect rising traffic volumes without introducing performance bottlenecks. They also need the flexibility to determine where security enforcement occurs based on application performance, data sovereignty, compliance, and operational requirements.
Powered by Fortinet’s latest FortiASIC architecture, the FortiGate 1200G series accelerates networking and security processing to deliver predictable, low-latency protection for demanding enterprise and data centre environments. Flexible 10G, 25G, and 100G connectivity helps organisations modernise their infrastructures, while hardware-rooted protections strengthen the integrity and resilience of the FortiGate 1200G.
Key benefits of the FortiGate 1200G include:
- Keeping applications fast: predictable low-latency inspection powered by FortiASIC enables organisations to secure encrypted and AI-driven traffic without sacrificing application performance
- Modernising with room to grow: flexible connectivity supports campus, data centre, and hybrid environments while providing headroom for future AI-driven growth
- Increasing operational resilience: hardware-rooted protections, secure credential storage, and built-in redundancy strengthen platform integrity and improve business continuity
- Reducing operational complexity: FortiOS consolidates networking and security while enabling consistent policy management across appliances and cloud-delivered services
When configured as a FortiSASE Outpost, the FortiGate 1200G can operate as a high-performance local SASE point-of-presence, giving organisations another option for where security inspection and enforcement occur.
On performance benchmarking, Fortinet said the FortiGate 1200G series delivers a security compute rating of 397.0 Gbps in firewall throughput, 102.0 Gbps in IPSec VPN throughput, and 40.0 Gbps in threat protection, alongside 40 million concurrent sessions and 1 million connections per second. The company said these figures compare favourably against competitor averages, and that the platform also delivers notable gains in energy efficiency, at 1.9 watts per Gbps of firewall throughput and 7.3 watts per Gbps of IPsec VPN throughput. Fortinet noted that the competitive figures are drawn from publicly available sources and that testing methodologies may vary across vendors.
Pete Finalle, Research Manager at IDC, said converged SASE and firewall platforms provide the flexibility to meet dynamic, AI-accelerated network architectures where they are, rather than becoming part of next year’s technical debt, and warned that buyers who judge platforms only by how well they fit today’s environment, rather than how effectively they can adapt to tomorrow’s, are already behind.
FortiSASE Outpost: sovereign security delivered at the edge
Organisations increasingly need the flexibility to determine where security inspection and enforcement occur based on their business, performance, sovereignty, and compliance requirements. Traffic can be routed through a cloud-based SASE point-of-presence, while data-sensitive or latency-critical traffic can be processed locally through FortiSASE Outpost running on a FortiGate within a customer-controlled environment.
Configured as a FortiSASE Outpost, the FortiGate operates as an ASIC-accelerated on-site SASE point-of-presence, delivering security inspection, policy enforcement, and access control closer to users and data. Organisations can strategically place on-site points-of-presence near large concentrations of users in regions without a nearby cloud point-of-presence, helping reduce latency, preserve application performance, and lower bandwidth costs.
This differentiated Fortinet architecture allows organisations to use Fortinet-operated points-of-presence, on-site points-of-presence, or both. The FortiSASE interface centrally manages configuration, policy, monitoring, lifecycle operations, and upgrades across both deployment models, maintaining consistent zero-trust policies, visibility, and protection without treating the on-site point-of-presence as a separate security environment.
Organisations can also keep designated traffic, logs, and processing within defined geographic or private infrastructure boundaries to meet regulatory requirements and reduce connectivity costs without changing the end-user experience.
Protecting every user without sacrificing performance or control
Regardless of where enforcement occurs, users receive a consistent access experience, and organisations maintain common security policies, visibility, and zero-trust controls. Security teams can keep designated traffic, processing, and logs within specific geographic, jurisdictional, or private infrastructure boundaries without creating a separate security architecture or changing how users connect to applications.
This deployment flexibility is especially important for AI-driven environments. Agents, applications, and connected devices generate growing volumes of east-west traffic that may not need to be routed through a cloud point-of-presence and back. Using the FortiGate as a high-performance local enforcement point, organisations can inspect this traffic closer to the user, helping reduce latency, preserve application performance, and maintain control over sensitive information.
Built on FortiOS, FortiGate and FortiSASE share policy, threat intelligence, security context, and zero-trust decisions across local and cloud-delivered environments. FortiGuard AI-Powered Security Services provide real-time intelligence and automated protection across both deployment models, while FortiAI helps security teams investigate and respond to threats faster without adding operational complexity.
Will Townsend, Chief Analyst at LoneStar Advisory and Research, said organisations should not have to choose between the scalability of cloud-delivered security and the performance, control, or sovereignty of on-premises enforcement. He added that the convergence of these models is creating a meaningful new SASE firewall market, and that Fortinet is well positioned for this shift, enabling customers to apply security through cloud-delivered FortiSASE or locally with the FortiGate 1200G and FortiSASE Outpost, based on what their business requires, while maintaining consistent policy, visibility, and user experience.
The FortiGate 1200G is expected to be available in the third quarter of 2026.
Source: Tahawul Tech