The only value that such appliances offer, is perception and illusion ......which can be of value to certain types of folks and deployment.
They spend a lot of time and money trying to create the warm fuzzy that they are doing something special with that appliance.. be it a phone system or firewall. Most of them are running linux variant with a highly masking web interface, along with heavily restricted feature capabilities. One can get a lot more value from other much less expensive systems, but they do require a small learning curve to deal with... HostedPBX when done right offers a much better value than any appliance phone system. (hosted pbx can be something as simple as Freepbx or any of the other distros running on a small box or a vm) Same goes for firewalls... If one has a semi reasonable understanding of packets and traffic, IP Tables (linux firewall) or a small MT is much more flexible and reliable that these appliances... Of course YMMV. Regards Faisal Imtiaz Snappy Internet & Telecom 7266 SW 48 Street Miami, FL 33155 Tel: 305 663 5518 x 232 Help-desk: (305)663-5518 Option 2 or Email: [email protected] > From: "That One Guy /sarcasm" <[email protected]> > To: [email protected] > Sent: Wednesday, November 18, 2015 5:47:17 PM > Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Phone System > Their UTM firewalls are outstanding, support impeccable, RMA process superb. > Firmware updates are a PITA because of the random changes, like taking out > DHCP > relay from the GUI requiring CLI. Their sizing calculator is pretty spot on. > They do a decent trade in for competitor replacement, just send a serial and > certificate of destruction. > It does suck if you dont do the maintenance contract you lose some of the UTM > like webfiltering > They have some 3com partnership, or they bought hem, something to that effect. > Their switches are a bit big for the britches, I wasnt impressed. > It can get pricey though > On Wed, Nov 18, 2015 at 4:41 PM, Paul Stewart < [email protected] > wrote: >> Interesting …. Anyone use Fortinet gear for anything else? They keep hitting >> my >> radar for certain applications but have no real hands on with it…. They seem >> to >> make a lot of options… >> From: Af [mailto: [email protected] ] On Behalf Of That One Guy /sarcasm >> Sent: Wednesday, November 18, 2015 5:34 PM >> To: [email protected] >> Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Phone System >> we do fortinet only >> You can do it without a problem >> its a good system as long as you realize is a voip pbx in a box, its not as >> configurable as some, but thats the beauty, you have a clear line of can do >> and >> cannot do >> Its designed to be an end user system as in you sell it to a customer and >> they >> manage it through their support contract with fortinet >> We have one customer who did that, he has had good success with self >> management, >> and hes a dolt at times. >> They bought Talkswitch so its actually a rebranded but seasoned system >> The virtual pbx is more scalable, but without conversion hardware it doesnt >> do >> pots >> On Mon, Nov 16, 2015 at 3:56 PM, Matt < [email protected] > wrote: >>> We are looking at upgrading our phone system. Looking at Fortinet. >>> We have two locations now with separate phone numbers. Wanting to >>> link the systems over Internet so we can help each other out when one >>> location or other has too many lines ringing. >>> What is everyone else using for a phone system and how do they like it? >> -- >> If you only see yourself as part of the team but you don't see your team as >> part >> of yourself you have already failed as part of the team. > -- > If you only see yourself as part of the team but you don't see your team as > part > of yourself you have already failed as part of the team.
