Fortinet Device Advice Needed

[superyacine]

My Apologies If this is not the right section to seek for an advice. 

Our company needs a fortinet firewall that can control up to 15 access points (FortiAPs and other brands).

I looked up on the website but it seems there is a large range of devices classified by type, size of the company, and the functionalities needed. 

Can someone explain the difference between  the B, D, E, F ... series

For a Small-company, What would be the right device that can act as a firewall, IPS, access point controller, all-in one. ? 

[rwpatterson]

Welcome to the forums.

As far as sizing goes, I'll defer to others. As for the letters, the lower in the alphabet, the newer the series is. B, C series units are sunsetted. D series (I believe) is end of sales, but still supported. E is being sold currently.  I may be a bit off on the D series, but you get the idea.

For sizing the amount of APs plays a part but the biggest case for sizing is how large a load the entire unit will be supporting as far as node count and functions (web filtering, IPS, etc.) which the FGT will be handling.

[superyacine]

Thanks for the clarification.

Although, when you said 'sunsetted' , it's a bit confusing to me. 

Do you mean the E series is what we should purchase ?

As for the size, we hope to connect a max of 200 clients (small or medium-sized network ? )

also, can all Fortigate devices control the wireless access-points , or only some of the latest can .? 

[Toshi_Esumi]

Check this online info page to see the MAX values for FortiAPs. Looks like 90D/E or above accommodate more than 15 APs.

http://help.fortinet.com/.../5-6-4/max-values.html

I don't know what kind of usage/features you're planning to use but I would choose 100E or above based on the size of your network. Just don't choose 100D although you probably still can find them online because some numbers in performance are even lower than 90D. 100E improved a lot from 100D.

[rwpatterson]

superyacine wrote:

Thanks for the clarification.

Although, when you said 'sunsetted' , it's a bit confusing to me.

sunsetted = end of life, no more support, no updates

[superyacine]

@rwpatterson    Now i get it . Thanks . 

@Toshi Esumi    You sent the exact link i was looking for. Will purchase the 100E .

Do you guys have any idea if it can act as a Captive Portal ?

[rwpatterson]

Yes. All models can.

[superyacine]

Thanks for your help guys