IndiGo Airlines relies on Fortinet’s secure SD-WAN Solution to provide the best user experience for business critical applications

By ETStaff Mumbai Last updated Jan 6, 2020 0

Fortinet®, a global leader in broad, integrated and automated cybersecurity solutions, recently announced that IndiGo, India’s largest airline, has deployed Fortinet Secure SD-WAN solution across its branch offices to secure its WAN edge.

IndiGo is the largest passenger airline in India with a market share of 46.9 per cent as of March, 2019. The airline connects to 58 domestic and 19 international destinations and operates more than 1300 flights every day. It is also the largest individual Asian low-cost carrier in terms of jet fleet size and passengers carried, and the seventh largest carrier in Asia. With a fleet size of 222 aircrafts, IndiGo has served over 300 million customers globally.

IndiGo’s growing passenger traffic combined with poor MPLS network and Internet quality had resulted in delays for customers accessing their applications for flight booking, call centers, airport counters and flight status checking, adversely affecting their business. To avoid delays and provide the best possible user experience for business-critical applications, the airline decided to adopt a hybrid WAN model, supporting its 54 airport counters, that would be able to distribute traffic over a variety of links, including MPLS, Broadband and Internet Leased Line.

IndiGo selected Fortinet Secure SD-WAN solution to provide best of breed SD-WAN integrated with security capabilities with one single offering. As part of the Fortinet Security Fabric, Fortinet’s Secure SD-WAN solution combines networking and security features, such as routing, WAN optimisation, application control and next-generation firewall, enabling IndiGo to manage and configure its WAN and security system from a single-pane-of-glass view.

Rajesh Maurya, regional vice president, India & SAARC at Fortinet stated, “Many customers are currently forced to use multiple point products and management consoles to achieve a secure SD-WAN connection. This separation of network and security operations is not only labor-intensive, but also makes performance and security a bottleneck to move towards direct internet access. Fortinet’s unique combination of next-generation firewall and SD-WAN in the same offering, managed through a single centralized controller has seen tremendous momentum in customer adoption and received two consecutive SD-WAN recommended ratings from NSS Labs.”

IndiGo has also deployed multiple FortiGate Next-Generation Firewalls at 54 airport counters and in their data centers, along with FortiManager and FortiAnalyzer for management and analytics. As a result, IndiGo can now map WAN resources directly making the network more efficient and responsive by combining scalability, flexibility, simplicity and cost savings with industry-leading security protection through Fortinet’s Secure SD-WAN solution.

“Transitioning to hybrid WAN was our business priority as our customers and airport counters need seamless application access connecting with a link that has the lowest latency. Fortinet’s Secure SD-WAN solution helps us with application routing, load balancing, performance monitoring and securing our customers data all in a single appliance, which reduces management complexity and delivers significant cost benefits,” said Lalit Gole, associate – director IT – Networks & Infrastructure, IndiGo.

After the SD-WAN deployment IndiGo has benefited from:

High Application Performance: Automated intelligence, a key feature of FortiOS for SD-WAN, significantly reduces latency by selecting the most efficient route for business-critical traffic through the tracking of granular WAN path information. This helps IndiGo monitor link quality connecting 2000 users in 54 branches with the lowest latency, supporting comprehensive routing with dynamic failover that ensures high-application availability.
Best-of-Breed SD-WAN and Security Capabilities in One Console: With an integrated solution, IndiGo manages both SD-WAN optimization and security capabilities using a single interface. This integration of network and security operations makes it easy to tie traditionally network-centric issues such as performance and functionality to critical NGFW capabilites and SSL data inspection.
The single console management helps IndiGo better allocate its IT resources to increase productivity and reduce business costs.
Reduced WAN Opex: IndiGo is able to achieve higher bandwith with lower WAN cost by transitioning from MPLS to a hybrid WAN using Fortinet’s Secure SD-WAN. Fortinet’s Secure SD-WAN capabilities allows IndiGo to leverage WAN link remediation to handle even the most volatile WAN connections and deliver superior application performance for unified communication.

Simplified WAN Edge Management: FortiManager and FortiAnalyzer helps IndiGo with SD-WAN management and orchestration with a single pane for centralized management with reporting and analytics across the SD-WAN environment.
Potential to Scale: With Fortinet’s Secure SD-WAN solution, IndiGo can continue to grow its business and expand operations by easily and securely adding new SD-WAN branches to its expanding network.