Base Backplane Communication; Fabric Backplane Communication; Accelerated Packet Forwarding And Policy Enforcement (Np4 Network Processors) - Fortinet FortiGate-5001C Manual

FortiGate-5001C security system

Base backplane communication

Fabric backplane communication

Accelerated packet forwarding and policy enforcement (NP4
network processors)
FortiGate-5001C Security System Guide
01-400-181221-20121130
http://docs.fortinet.com/
The FortiGate-5001C base backplane 1-gigabit interfaces (base1 and base2) are typically
used for HA heartbeat or other management communication between FortiGate-5001C
boards installed in the same or in different FortiGate-5000 series chassis. You can also
configure FortiGate-5001C boards to use the base backplane interfaces for data
communication between FortiGate boards. To support base backplane communications
your FortiGate-series chassis must include one or more FortiSwitch-5000 series or other
1-gigabit base backplane switches installed in the chassis in base slots 1 and 2.
For information about base backplane communication in FortiGate-5000 series chassis,
see the FortiSwitch Backplane Communication
FortiSwitch-5000 series boards, see the FortiSwitch-5000 Series documents on the
FortiSwitch page of the Fortinet Technical Documentation website.
The FortiGate-5001C fabric backplane interfaces (fabric1 and fabric2) are typically used
for data communication between FortiGate-5001C boards installed in the same or in
different FortiGate-5000 series chassis. To support 10-gigabit fabric backplane
communications your FortiGate-5000 series chassis must include one or more
FortiSwitch-5003A or FortiSwitch-5003B boards or other 10-gigabit fabric backplane
switching boards installed in the chassis in fabric slots 1 and 2.
For information about base backplane communication in FortiGate-5000 series chassis,
see the FortiSwitch Backplane Communication
FortiSwitch-5000 series boards, see the FortiSwitch-5000 Series documents on the
FortiSwitch page of the Fortinet Technical Documentation website.
The FortiGate-5001C board includes two NP4 processors that provide accelerated
packet forwarding and policy enforcement for the FortiGate-5001C front panel and
backplane interfaces. Accelerated packet forwarding and policy enforcement results in
accelerated small packet performance required for voice, video, and other multimedia
streaming applications.
The following traffic scenarios are recommended for the accelerated interfaces:
• Small packet applications, such as voice over IP (VoIP).
The FortiGate-5001C accelerated interfaces provide wire speed performance for small
packet applications.
• Latency sensitive applications, such as multimedia.
The FortiGate-5001C accelerated interfaces add much less latency than normal (non-
accelerated) interfaces.
• Session Oriented Traffic with long session lifetime, such as FTP sessions.
Packet size does not affect performance for traffic with long session lifetime. For long
sessions, processing that would otherwise be handled by the FortiGate-5001C CPUs
is off-loaded to the acceleration module.
• Firewall, intrusion protection (IPS), and antivirus, when there is a reasonable
percentage of P2P packets.
• Firewall and IPsec VPN applications.
Base backplane communication
Guide. For information about
Guide. For information about
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