Fortigate Vm Sizing Azure Jun 2026

Start with a D-series v5 instance. They offer the best balance of CPU performance, network bandwidth credits, and cost. Deploy active-passive (AP) clustering via Azure Load Balancer for HA, and leverage the "Usage" graphs in the Azure Portal to verify if your CPU or Network Out metrics are hitting the ceiling.

: You generally need at least an 8-vCPU instance like the Standard_F8s_v2 or Standard_D3_v2 to support 4 network interfaces. fortigate vm sizing azure

FortiGate supports various instance families, primarily leveraging or General Purpose (D-series) . Feature Need Recommended Azure Series Standard DPI D-Series (e.g., D2s_v3, D4s_v3) Good balance of compute and memory for general UTM tasks. High Performance DPI F-Series (e.g., F4s, F8s) Start with a D-series v5 instance

Fortinet licensing is strictly tied to vCPU count. This creates a "Tax" on oversizing. : You generally need at least an 8-vCPU

Always check the Azure VM Network Bandwidth limits before selecting a size.

| Use Case | Recommended VM Size (BYOL) | License | Expected Throughput | |----------|----------------------------|---------|----------------------| | Small branch / Dev test | D2sv5 (2 vCPU, 8 GB) | PAYG | 300–500 Mbps | | Medium enterprise hub | D4sv5 (4 vCPU, 16 GB) | BYOL | 1–1.5 Gbps | | IPS + SSL inspection (1 Gbps) | E8sv5 (8 vCPU, 64 GB) | BYOL | 800 Mbps – 1.2 Gbps | | VPN concentrator (500 users) | F8sv2 (8 vCPU, 16 GB) | BYOL | 1.5 Gbps IPSec | | Large perimeter (>2 Gbps) | E16sv5 (16 vCPU, 128 GB) | BYOL | 4–6 Gbps |