Whenadding an additional FortiGateto an enterprise network that is already reaching itsresource limits, the goal is to distribute traffic efficiently and ensurehigh availability.
FGSP (FortiGate Session Life Support Protocol) with external load balancers
FGSP allowssession-aware load balancingbetween multiple FortiGate units without requiring them to be in an HA (High Availability) cluster.
Withexternal load balancers, incoming traffic isevenly distributedacross multiple FortiGate devices.
This approach is useful forscaling outtraffic handling capacity while ensuring that sessions remainsynchronizedbetween firewalls.
FGSP is effectivewhen stateful failover is requiredbut without the constraints of traditional HA.
FGCP (FortiGate Clustering Protocol) in active-active mode and with switches
FGCPactive-active modeenables multiple FortiGate devices toshare traffic loads, increasing throughput and efficiency.
Active-active mode is suitable forbalancing UTM processingacross multiple FortiGates, making it ideal whenresource limits are a concern.
Usingswitchesensures redundancy and avoids single points of failure in the network.
This mode is commonly used inenterprise networkswhere bothscalability and redundancyare required.