FortiController-5103B
The FortiController-5103B distributes IPv4 TCP and UDP sessions to multiple FortiGate-5000-series boards (called workers) over the ATCA chassis fabric backplane. The FortiController-5103B board forms a session-aware load balanced cluster with up to 12 FortiGate-5000 boards operating as workers and uses DP processors to load balance millions of sessions to the cluster, providing 10 Gbps of traffic to each cluster member. Performance of the cluster shows linear improvement if more workers are added.
Clusters can be formed with one or two FortiController-5103B boards and up to 12 workers. All of the workers must be the same model. Currently FortiGate-5001B, FortiGate-5001C, FortiGate-5101C, and FortiGate-5001D models are supported.
The FortiController-5103B board can be installed in any ATCA chassis that can provide sufficient power and cooling. Supported FortiGate chassis include the 14-slot FortiGate-5140B and the 6-slot FortiGate-5060 chassis.
You can also install the FortiController-5103B board in a FortiGate-5144C chassis but this is not recommended because the 5144C chassis has a 40Gbit fabric backplane while the FortiController-5103B only supports 10Gbit fabric backplane connections. Older FortiGate-5000 chassis do not supply the power and cooling required for the FortiController-5103B board.
In all ATCA chassis, FortiController-5103B boards are installed in the first and second hub/switch slots (usually slots 1 and 2). A single FortiController-5103B board should be installed in slot 1 (but you can install it in slot 2). If you add a second board it should be installed in slot 2.
FortiController-5103B front panel
The FortiController-5103B board includes the following hardware features:
- One 1Gbps base backplane channel for layer-2 base backplane switching between FortiGate-5000 boards installed in the same chassis as the FortiController-5103B board. This base backplane channel includes 13 1Gbps connections to up to 13 other slots in the chassis (slots 2 to 14).
- One 10Gbps fabric backplane channel for layer-2 fabric backplane switching between FortiGate-5000 boards installed in the same chassis as the FortiController-5103B board. This fabric backplane channel includes 13 10Gbps connections to up to 13 other slots in the chassis (slots 2 to 14). Speed can be changed to 1Gbps.
- Eight front panel 10Gbps SFP+ FortiGate interfaces (1 to 8). In a session-aware load balanced cluster these interfaces are connected to 10Gbps networks to distribute sessions to FortiGate-5000 boards installed in chassis slots 3 to 14. Speed can be changed to 1Gbps. The MTU size of these interfaces is 9000 bytes.
- Two front panel base backplane 10Gbps SFP+ interfaces (B1 and B2) that connect to the base backplane channel. These interfaces are used for heartbeat and management communication between FortiController-5103B boards. Speed can be changed to 1Gbps.
- On-board DP processors to provide high-capacity session-aware load balancing.
- One 1Gbps out of band management ethernet interface (MGMT).
- One RJ-45, RS-232 serial console connection (CONSOLE).