Share your experience using FortiMonitor

FortiMonitor is very neat due to its fully customizable features for admins. We can easily see in the dashboard the traffic info, including how much traffic is going through, who's trying to access blocked sites, and how much traffic our storage and CMAs are using. Plus, we can check out fan speed, temperature, and system health, which is super handy. If there's a potential hardware issue, FortiGate gives us a heads-up in advance, which is really helpful, especially in a busy telco environment where we're always on the go 24/7.

In FortiMonitor, we're linked up with our Netgear, CactusServer, and NOC. It's really valuable because everything's migrating to one dashboard for us system engineers. We can keep an eye on traffic, blocked sites, and the health of our hardware. That last part, about knowing if something's going to fail soon, is super important. It gives us time to sort things out before any big problems happen.

As a system engineer, I need to keep tabs on everything – temperature, monitoring systems, and network operations. This data is really handy because it helps me ensure our site runs smoothly, whether it's turning systems on or off. Just last night, there was a system failure, but thanks to real-time monitoring, I quickly identified the problem and got the necessary replacement parts.

I think the current features are really good for me, nothing else comes to mind right now.

Maybe some small improvements could be made in the customization and configuration part of the UI to make it easier or more intuitive. Customizable UI options, like we saw in the demo, could be helpful for everyone. But in our operational environment, having clear health status and system details is crucial for us system engineers. One feature I'd really like to see is a credential management system. It would help us keep track of who's logged in and how many times, which is important due to user restrictions. Sometimes, we need to manage logins more efficiently, like logging off other users to free up credentials. So having a feature like that would be really helpful.

I have been using FortiMonitor for the past 6-7 months.

Currently, we're using Corinator SolarWinds, and I haven't encountered any visibility or issues with integrating FortiMonitor with them. The support from FortiMonitor has been good too, with quick responses and resolutions within a reasonable timeframe.

As for scalability, yes, I find it scalable. It's easy to expand as needed.

I've used KAPI and Nagios for network monitoring when I was a registered candidate engineer. Nagios, being free, was a good option, but KAPI was considered best for our needs at the time. While paid versions often offer more features, Nagios was still solid for a free option.

As for any disadvantages of FortiMonitor compared to Nagios or other solutions, I've noticed that Nagios had issues with system downtime. When the system went down, it caused a cascade effect, and migrating data from the previous system was difficult. In contrast, FortiMonitor offers a backup solution using EXI, making it easier to switch to another VM if needed.

Overall, I'd rate the FortiMonitor system implementation an eight. It's really good, but there's room for improvement.I wasn't directly involved in deploying FortiMonitor in my current organization. It was already in place when I joined, managed by the network security and log teams.

I would recommend using FortiMonitor because of its specialties and real-time experience. Unlike other tools like Nagios that take around ten to fifteen minutes to update real-time data, FortiMonitor refreshes all data in just five milliseconds. That's a huge advantage, making real-time data easily accessible and actionable.

I'd rate it an eight out of ten. It's a solid choice with great features and performance.

With FortiMonitor, you can get all the logs of the traffic information of the destination or the source.

Sometimes, we get corruption when upgrading from firmware to the new generation, causing a lot of issues.

I have been using FortiMonitor for 11 years.

FortiMonitor is a stable solution.

FortiMonitor's technical support is very helpful.

Positive

FortiMonitor's initial setup is easy.

FortiMonitor's deployment takes one hour. I can deploy the solution myself.

Compared to other solutions, FortiMonitor is a very expensive solution. Users have to pay an annual subscription fee for the solution.

Only one person is required for the solution's maintenance.

Overall, I rate FortiMonitor an eight out of ten.