Fortinet FortiWLM Initial Setup

Zachary Wheeler - PeerSpot reviewer
President / CEO at Secure Solutions Center LLC

It was super easy. I would rate it a five out of five in terms of the setup. 

The deployment for this very large Florida location is probably a day or a day and a half job, but that's only because of the number of switches and APs that we have to physically install. Getting it online takes a couple of hours.

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Shariq Jamil - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Manager at Orbin

The initial setup is complex, especially with regard to the bad software, complex system integration with the existing infrastructure, integration with multi-factor authentication, and integration with industrial equipment. The solution also supports the industry's portables. However, the UC does not have an extensive list of industries for the portables.

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FransLegdeur - PeerSpot reviewer
Owner at Falco Networks

We use a basic setup and the initial setup of Fortinet FortiWLM. The implementation process takes approximately one hour.

To effectively manage your network, it's important to understand the concept of profiles. These profiles can be tailored to specific types of hardware and when that hardware is detected, it will automatically be configured to match the corresponding profile, ensuring all APs are consistently set up. It's a fantastic solution for network management.

The bulk of the work involves physically connecting all the devices and ensuring they have the correct IP addresses. Once that is done, the logical setup is relatively simple and can be accomplished by navigating through the GUI to create profiles.

I rate the initial setup of Fortinet FortiWLM a seven out of ten.

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MR
Owner at Mar Consulting Services

The initial setup is pretty straightforward. It can be deployed in minutes.

I am a single person responsible to maintain, more than 18 offices and 60 APs. I do everything myself. The single pane of glass and the integration of the complete Fortinet product line, are very easy to deploy and maintain.

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PM
IT and IT Security Consulting at MacTaggart IT Security

The difficulty of the initial setup probably depends a lot on the level of user who is trying to use it. In the beginning, it took me only one day to do the setup because I had some similar experience. It took me one day for Aruba and it took me one day for Fortinet. The average, intelligent person can learn to set up this solution in a short period of time. But I would not say that it is intuitive for just anyone. You have to learn some theory about the controller and what the controller is doing. You have to read a few manuals. But it is almost intuitive, in general, and easy if you have some experience and are willing to learn. It is not made for a common laborer or for a housewife. It is made for an engineer who can read the manual and understand what is supposed to happen. It is quite usable in that case.  

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RW
Network Engineer at a university with 501-1,000 employees

The setup of the FortiAPs is very straightforward and very easy to do. We chose to pre-deploy them, because of how we were going to have to deploy them, so that I had a team put them up and they were already labeled, because of the quantity that we were doing. Pre-deploying them, so the system already had the names on them, made it a little easier. All I had to is have people go hook them up. Once they hooked them up, I could complete the configuration, and it was super-easy, super-fast.

When we did the initial deployment, we did one building in one day, and we monitored that building and watched for any issues, to make sure that we had the settings and configuration correct. Then we turned around and we did the remaining nine buildings in a week. That was a total of 400 APs.

It went really smoothly. The interface and the original setup make it really easy. I was able to have a bunch of people putting them online and, as they did, I could see them come online. The way that the interface is built, being able to assign a profile, and having all that pre-built, it went really quickly.

Our deployment strategy was a staged implementation. Originally, we did a test, just to make sure we were going to be happy with the performance. Then, when we did the one building, that was the model. We had a little bit of time between that building and the rest, so we could tweak the implementation. That really assisted in us being able to do the number that we did in that short amount of time.

When I say it took us a week to do all those buildings, that included not just the AP part of it, but all the things we had to do to the network to allow everything to work. In a school setting, it's a lot more in depth, because that includes filtering which is a great deal more detailed than it is in most enterprises.

The neat thing about Fortinet technology is that it's so intuitive, it's so easy to use, anybody who is a network engineer is able to understand the technology and get it working pretty well. Documentation, cookbooks, and videos are available to help you. If you ever need any help, calling the Support Desk you get right through and they'll point you in the right direction.

Through the whole deployment, I only had two or three calls to them, and they were more about best practices: "We're doing it this way, would it be better if we did it the other way?" In some instances they said, "Well, you probably oughta test it." We did some testing so that we were able to make sure that we had the best solution for our situation.

We started testing about two years ago and deployed it across the entire school corporation about a year ago.

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MD
Senior Network Engineer at a educational organization with 10,001+ employees

The initial setup is straightforward and intuitive. A simple and reliable network can be set up very quickly using Fortinet wireless equipment. Using Fortinet Single Channel Architecture is not a replacement for having solid wireless network fundamentals. Wireless network knowledge is critical for deploying any wireless equipment.

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DA
Sr. Director, IT at a healthcare company with 1,001-5,000 employees

It was fairly straightforward. With any new product you need training because it's different.  We needed a little bit of training but it wasn't anything that was difficult.

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Tesfa Harris - PeerSpot reviewer
Information Technology Specialist at a comms service provider with 51-200 employees

The initial setup is straightforward. 

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Javier Jacob Sanchez Partida - PeerSpot reviewer
Infrastructure Engineer at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

Fortinet FortiWLM's installation was easy. 

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MR
Network Administrator at a tech company with 11-50 employees

I give the initial setup a nine out of ten. I like the way FortiGate devices manage the FortiAPs. Each AP takes between five and ten minutes to adapt to the FortiGate.

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PS
Security Pre-Sales Engineer - Southern Reigion at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

If it's an industrial setup, it's a bit complex. You need to know what you're doing. An everyday manager wouldn't be able to set it up properly because you need to know how to secure it properly and set all the settings.

For an industrial deployment, if you get engineers who are knowledgeable, it would be pretty easy for them. They could set it up within a day. The integrated WiFi, where you connect the AP to the FortiGate, will take a couple of minutes. The cloud WiFi is actually a zero-touch deployment. You can just ship it to a branch office, have them connect it to the internet, and it will configure itself automatically.

In terms of an implementation strategy for an industrial deployment, the first step would be to do a proper wireless survey by somebody who understands the field. Something that I have seen, where most people go wrong, is that the network engineers or the network administrator in the company think they how to design the network. In the diagram they place the APs where they think would be the optimal placements. Later on, when they've done the purchase and setting up, they figure out it's not optimal. Either they have wasted money by putting in too many APs, or they have not assigned enough APs to power the entire network. When it comes to wireless LAN networks, step number one should be getting a proper WiFi survey done to suit your requirements. After that it's easy.

The survey requires just one person. For a deployment, I'm not sure how many people will be required to set up the APs, because if it's a big conventional hall, for example, then you are going to need some professional people doing the WiFi mounting, etc. After that, configuration-wise, it is a one-person job.

I don't think that any organization will have somebody who is qualified to do a deployment by themselves. This is a niche product. If a company is going to introduce Fortinet Wireless into their network, the IT administrators would not know how to configure it. They would have to get somebody who knows it. After that, they could get training for maintaining it. The administration will then take just one person.

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PP
Senior Technical Support Executive with 11-50 employees

The initial setup is easy and user-friendly. The deployment is highly efficient, and it may take 25 minutes to configure if you have a maximum of ten access points. At most, it may take three to four hours.

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JG
Network Communication Solutions Manager at IT Solutions NV

The initial setup is a little more work due to the fact that we have to set up the controller. It's not as difficult, however, you have more steps.

For a small setup, you only need one person to manage the implementation.

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AA
Works

Setting up the solution is really straightforward. The amount of time it takes depends on the customer. If it's a really big customer, the implementation process could take from three months to almost ten months. Once you have all the plans and you start installing, it's really straightforward and it can move fast.

For Mexico, a big customer is the one that has more than 200 retail stores. They are not as big as in the U.S. or in other countries, but for Mexico, a retail store that has 250 stores is a huge company.

The deployment strategy depends on the project manager and his staff. Because we are telecom service providers, we usually start with all the internet connections, and voice and data connection, using fibre. Once we have all that in place, we start building the local area networks.

In terms of deployment and maintenance, on average, I would estimate it's about eight to ten percent of the investment. It depends on the customer and the approach we have with the customer. We usually have two or three engineers, per customer, giving support. But that's not just for the wireless, that's also for the networking. For a huge retail company, we may have between five and ten certified engineers working on daily support for the customer.

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NA
Network Engineer at Manser Saxon Contracting Ltd

You need to understand the concept first before you can implement the solution. You need to be familiar with networking first to be able to install Fortinet FortiWLM.

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DK
Service Delivery Manager at ZAVASI TECHNOLOGIES PVT LTD

In many of my other previous companies, Fortinet Wireless has been used. I haven't had many challenges. Apart from that, when I became a system integrator, I found that It's really good when comparing it to any other product or it is much better in terms of features that the customer requires.

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RR
IT Infrastructure at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

The setup is easy. Of course, I don't think it's as easy as with Ubiquiti, as that's a big sales point for them. Fortinet still has some catching up to do in this regard, but the setup is not that difficult compared to other solutions such as Meraki.

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MK
Managing Director at a tech vendor with 51-200 employees

The initial setup was easy.

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SB
Syssense at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

If we are redoing an installation of an existing network are some difficulties but a typical installation is not difficult.

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Buyer's Guide
Wireless LAN
March 2024
Find out what your peers are saying about Fortinet, HPE Aruba Networking, Cisco and others in Wireless LAN. Updated: March 2024.
765,386 professionals have used our research since 2012.