Fortinet has unveiled a new solution in partnership with NVIDIA, designed for the modern demands of AI and private cloud infrastructures. The integration of FortiGate VM, Fortinet's virtual cloud firewall, with the NVIDIA BlueField-3 data processing unit (DPU) marks a shift in how security functions are embedded into data centre infrastructures.
Traditionally, safeguarding high-performance environments like AI factories often meant sacrificing speed for security. However, this collaboration between Fortinet and NVIDIA demonstrates a shift. By deploying core security tasks directly on the BlueField DPU, organisations can maintain both speed and strict security protocols, crucial for today's advanced computing needs.
Integrating FortiGate VM within the data processing unit rather than the host CPU allows for high-performance security functions, such as firewalling, segmentation, and imposing zero-trust policies, across networks without hindering the throughput required by AI workloads.
John Whittle, Fortinet’s Chief Operating Officer, emphasised the importance of aligning security with the burgeoning performance demands of AI and private cloud applications. By enabling key security functions to run on the DPU, rather than traditional processing units, enterprises can enhance their system's isolation, lower latency, and ensure consistent policy enforcement, a vital aspect for scaling AI-powered data centres.
Also championing this innovation, Kevin Deierling, NVIDIA’s Senior Vice President of Networking, highlighted how offloading security tasks onto the DPU benefits organisations aiming for infrastructural acceleration and advanced protection. This collaboration enables the enforcement of security services without impacting GPU workloads—crucial for operating at AI-scale.
Organisations are increasingly combining private-cloud architectures with high-density computing clusters to meet the demands of modern, latency-sensitive workloads allowing them to maintain pace with AI-scale traffic, securing high-performance environments without the trade-offs.
The FortiGate VM on NVIDIA BlueField solution is underpinned by the FortiOS operating system, known for its firewall capabilities. Now available starting with FortiOS 7.6.3, interested parties are encouraged to reach out to their Fortinet representatives for information on hardware configurations and deployment procedures.
