Why Servers Are A Must Use for NGFW against Traditional Security vs Fortinet Firewalls

Okay, so, you have to understand, I’ve been playing this game since the early ’90s. Back in the day when PSTN was the networking problem of the day for running voice and data. Back when Slammer worm hammered its way onto networks like a sledgehammer and firewalls were big, inflexible beasts that either let traffic in or blocked it altogether.

But today? That sort of old-school security doesn’t work anymore. The threat landscape has evolved — attackers are smarter, quicker and more persistent. And if you are still depending on legacy firewalls to secure your business-critical servers, you might as well be bolting your doors and keeping the windows wide open.

Let’s get into it.

What is the Difference Between a Traditional and NGFW?

In the old days, a firewall had one objective: to inspect packets and breed basic network policies. Accept, deny, log. Simple stuff. But attackers got smarter. They learned how to tunnel malicious payloads in legit traffic. They had encrypted connections, obfuscated payloads, and bang — traditional firewalls were blind to them.

Firewalls Were Great — When They Were Built

• They only filtered traffic by IP address and port.
• Application awareness? Forget about it.
• No deep packet inspection (DPI), which meant malware hidden inside normal packets passed through.
• No ability to spot advanced threats such as zero-day exploits or ransomware.

That compares to Next-Gen Firewalls (NGFWs)—Fortinet specifically has its FortiGate series—and now we’re in a whole different ballpark of security.

What Makes NGFWs Different?

• Deep Packet Inspection (DPI): They don’t just look at traffic—they question it.
• Application Control: Understand what is actually running on your network, as opposed to just open ports.
• Advanced Threat Intelligence: Leverage real-time global indicators of compromise to identify malicious traffic.
• Integrated IPS (Intrusion Prevention System): Prevents threats from ever getting close to your server.

This is no longer about firewall rules. It’s all about behavior analysis, anomaly detection, and real-time threat mitigation.

Why Are NGFW Important for Servers?

This month, I have helped upgrade the security stack of three banks from a legacy stack of disjointed firewalls to next-gen (NGFWs). Wanna know what I found?

Their legacy firewalls simply couldn’t see anything beyond L4.

If some malicious payload snuck in along with what appeared to be normal traffic, the firewall just shrugged and passed it along. And given today’s threats … that’s no small evil. That’s dangerous.

If you are hosting critical business applications and customer data on your servers, this is not an optional task:

• Prevent malicious traffic at L7 (Application Layer)
  • Standard firewalls miss malware in HTTPS. NGFW does.
  • Your firewall can automatically be updated by real-time threat intel, so you don’t have to wait for a patch.
• Preventing Lateral Movement
  • Attackers love pivoting. Once they get in, they multiply.
  • NGFWs halt that movement by inspecting flows and limiting anomalous behaviour between internal hosts.
• Analysis of Encrypted Traffic
  • More than 80% of web traffic is encrypted now.
  • Without decryption and inspection, your firewall is blind to the overwhelming majority of potential threats.

I know, I know — NGFWs are pricey compared to the initial outlay. But if your servers store customer data, financial transactions, or other proprietary business information, standard firewalls simply don’t work anymore.

Is Fortinet’s Advanced Threat Protection The Gold Standard?

Not all NGFWs are the same. Anyone who has been deployed to them will tell you as much.

I’ve worked with Palo Alto, Cisco ASA, Check Point, and Fortinet — and while they all have their strengths, for firewall and security synergy, Fortinet is unreal.

What Fortinet Does Right

• Security Processing Units (SPUs): Hardware accelerated without killing performance for inspection.
• Contextualized, AI-powered threat intelligence: Fortinet’s FortiGuard labs actually deliver.
• Sandbox for Zero-Day Threats: All files are diverted for dynamic analysis before entering your network.
• Unified Security Fabric: End-to-end visibility across VPN, SD-WAN, firewall, and endpoint security in a single ecosystem.

Better yet, Zero Trust is baked in—not some post-hoc add-on.

Even better? It scales. Whether you have a single web server or a data center, Fortinet NGFWs scale as you do without becoming a bottleneck.

Expertise in NGFW With PJ Networks: The Importance

He doesn’t just sell security; he lives it.

Between the improvements to banking security (three major financials have done this just this year) and spending way too many hours on exploits at DefCon (shoutout to the hardware hacking village, that was a blast)—I get to see how attackers are living.

When a client asks:

Is an NGFW really worth it?

The answer is always an emphatic yes.

And PJ Networks isn’t exactly what you think, we sell more than firewalls, we build customized, real-world solutions for companies that understand uptime and security are not negotiable.

What We Offer

• Custom Deployments with Fortinet: Not off-the-shelf security, but fine-tuned for your infrastructure.
• Zero-Trust Architecture Planning: Implicit trust will always be a point of weakness.
• 24/7 Threat Monitoring & Response: Firewalls need to do more than just block; they need to be continuously retuned.
• Incident Response & Forensics: When there is a breach, we don’t only clean it, but uncover how it occurred.

Security is more than plugging in a box and spinning the wheel. You require constant evolution, refreshes, and real strategy — that’s why we excel at PJ Networks.

Conclusion: The evolution of firewall security—have you?

Old-school firewalls were okay. Until they weren’t.

On the other hand, if you are handling mission-critical workloads like servers, applications, or databases, a Next-Gen Firewall stating that it is a “nice to have” is being disingenuous.

Quick recap:

• Traditional Firewalls = Obsolete, ignorant of modern tactics.
• NGFWs (ex. Fortinet FortiGate) = Server-grade, real-time, intelligent protection.
• PJ Networks = Experts on proven NGFW implementation for core business security.

Are you still hanging on to legacy firewall tech? You may as well leave the front door open and pray no one comes in.

Looking for help on protecting your servers? Let’s talk.