Fortinet FortiGate Series Administration Guide

Firewall Load Balance How load balancer works
FortiGate Version 4.0 MR1 Administration Guide
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Firewall Load Balance
Use the FortiGate load balancing function to intercept the incoming traffic and share it
across the available servers. By doing so, the FortiGate unit enables multiple servers to
respond as if they were a single device or server. This in turn means that more
simultaneous requests can be handled.
There are additional benefits to server load balancing. Firstly, because the load is
distributed across multiple servers, the service being provided can be highly available. If
one of the servers breaks down, the load can still be handled by the other servers.
Secondly, this increases scalability. If the load increases substantially, more servers can
be added behind the FortiGate unit in order to cope with the increased load.
This section describes:
• How load balancer works
• Configuring virtual servers
• Configuring real servers
• Configuring health check monitors
• Monitoring the servers
How load balancer works
You can configure virtual servers on the FortiGate unit (load balancer) and bind them to a
cluster of real servers. Up to 8 real servers can be bound to 1 virtual server. The topology
of cluster is transparent to end users, and the users interact with the system as if it were
only a single virtual server. The real servers may be interconnected by high-speed LAN or
by geographically dispersed WAN. The FortiGate unit schedules requests to the different
servers and makes parallel services of the cluster to appear as a virtual service on a
single IP address.
Figure 265: Virtual server and real servers setup
User
(Virtual Server/Load Balancer)
Real Server
Real Server
Internet/Intranet
Real Server
LAN/WAN

Fortinet FortiGate Series Specifications

General

Model	FortiGate Series
Category	Firewall
Throughput	Varies by model
Interfaces	Varies by model
Concurrent Sessions	Varies by model
VPN Support	Yes
High Availability	Yes
Firewall Throughput	Varies by model
VPN Throughput	Varies by model
IPS Throughput	Varies by model
NGFW Throughput	Varies by model
Threat Protection Throughput	Varies by model
New Sessions per Second	Varies by model
Power Supply	Varies by model
Security Features	Firewall, IPS, Application Control, Web Filtering, Antivirus, VPN
Virtual Domains	Yes
Form Factor	Desktop, Rackmount