Licensing and Security Subscriptions
Your FortiGate Firewall uses FortiFlex dynamic licensing from Fortinet. Your license is managed automatically throughout the lifecycle of your firewall — you do not need to enter license keys, activate licenses manually, or contact support for routine licensing operations.
What Happens at Each Action
| Action | What you do | What happens to the license |
|---|---|---|
| Create Firewall | Fill in the creation form and confirm | License is provisioned and activated automatically |
| Power Off | Click Power Off and confirm | License is paused |
| Power On / Start | Click Start and confirm | License is reactivated automatically |
| Reinstall | Click Reinstall and confirm | License is re-applied to the VM automatically after reinstall |
| Delete | Click Delete and confirm | License is released automatically — nothing further needed |
FortiGuard Security Subscriptions
Your FortiGate Firewall's built-in firewalling can be extended with optional Fortinet-managed security subscriptions — additional threat-intelligence and inspection services kept up to date by Fortinet's FortiGuard Labs. Fortinet groups these into three bundles that build on one another: ATP (Advanced Threat Protection), UTP (Unified Threat Protection), and Enterprise Protection.
Reviewing what each bundle covers can help you decide which additional protections are worth enabling for your workloads, on top of the firewall rules you configure yourself.
| Capability | ATP (Essential) | UTP (Web & Network) | Enterprise (Full Attack Surface) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intrusion Prevention (IPS) | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Antivirus / Advanced Malware Protection | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Application Control | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Cloud Sandbox (zero-day detection) | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| URL, DNS & Video Filtering | — | ✅ | ✅ |
| Anti-Botnet / C2 Protection | — | ✅ | ✅ |
| Data Loss Prevention (DLP) | — | — | ✅ |
| AI-based Inline Malware Prevention | — | — | ✅ |
| Attack Surface & IoT Visibility | — | — | ✅ |
For the full, up-to-date details, see Fortinet's own resources:
- FortiGate Security Bundles — compares the ATP, UTP, and Enterprise bundles and what each one covers.
- FortiGuard Security Services Datasheet (PDF) — describes each individual FortiGuard security service in detail.
These are optional, Fortinet-provided subscriptions layered on top of your FortiGate Firewall. Raise a request with E2E support to add one of these bundles to your firewall.
Troubleshooting
Firewall not ready after creation
If your firewall is still not in a Running state after creation for an extended period, the license activation may not have completed. Raise a support ticket with your firewall name and creation time.
Firewall not licensing after Reinstall
If the firewall is not working correctly after a reinstall, the license may not have been re-applied. Wait a few minutes and check the firewall status. If the issue persists, raise a support ticket.
Firewall not coming up after Power On
If the firewall fails to reach Running state after a Power On, raise a support ticket with your firewall name.
Related Resources
| Resource | Use it for |
|---|---|
| Get Started with Firewall | Create and manage your FortiGate firewall |
| Firewall FAQ and Troubleshooting | Self-service fixes for plan-upgrade and license sync issues |
| FortiGate IPSec VPN Setup | Configure a site-to-site VPN tunnel on your firewall |
| VPC | Attach VPCs to your firewall |