FortiADC goes beyond basic traffic distribution to deliver a full application delivery controller stack. It handles SSL/TLS offloading to remove encryption overhead from your servers, performs layer 7 content switching based on URL or header rules, runs application health checks so traffic routes only to healthy servers, and includes global server load balancing for multi-site deployments. Most models also carry an integrated Web Application Firewall for inline application-layer protection.

The right model depends on your throughput requirements, physical environment, and redundancy needs. The 60F, 100F, and 200F cover branch offices and small data centers with a desktop footprint that fits on a shelf. The 300D and 400D handle mid-market production workloads in a 1U rack mount. The 1000F through 4000F are for enterprise and carrier environments that need multi-gigabit throughput and hardware redundancy. The VM series fits VMware, KVM, or Hyper-V environments where capacity should scale with the virtual workload. Our Fortinet Expert engineers can match you to the right model based on your current traffic and growth plan.

Yes. FortiADC includes an integrated WAF that inspects HTTP and HTTPS traffic for OWASP Top 10 vulnerabilities, SQL injection, cross-site scripting, and other application-layer threats. The WAF runs inline with load balancing, so you are not adding a separate appliance to the path. Enterprise and high-performance models carry more throughput headroom for WAF-enabled inspection at scale.

Yes. FortiADC terminates SSL/TLS connections at the controller, decrypts traffic for load balancing decisions and WAF inspection, then re-encrypts before forwarding to the server pool when required. This removes the SSL processing burden from your application servers and gives the ADC full visibility into decrypted request content for health checks and security policy enforcement.

FortiADC virtual appliances run on VMware ESXi, KVM, and Microsoft Hyper-V. The VM01, VM02, VM04, and VM08 designations correspond to licensed vCPU counts, which determine the throughput capacity of the virtual appliance. You purchase the license that matches your vCPU allocation and can upgrade to a higher tier as your workload grows.

Yes. FortiADC participates in the Fortinet Security Fabric, sharing threat intelligence and telemetry with FortiGate firewalls, FortiAnalyzer, and FortiManager in the same environment. Security teams get consolidated visibility across the network perimeter and the application delivery layer from a single management plane, without toggling between separate consoles.

Yes. Our Fortinet Expert certified engineers offer a pre-ship configuration service that covers virtual server setup, server pool health checks, SSL profiles, and persistence rules tuned to your specific application. We hold a requirements call before the unit ships and include seven calendar days of post-deployment support. The configuration service can be added at the time of the hardware order.