AXL American Axle and Manufacturing Holdings Inc

Fortinet� -- the pioneer and leading provider of unified threat management (UTM) solutions -- today announced that American Axle & Manufacturing (NYSE: AXL) has deployed an array of FortiGate� multi-threat appliances for firewall, virtual private network (VPN), Web content filtering and intrusion prevention protection at its national and international locations. American Axle & Manufacturing (AAM) has also deployed Fortinet's FortiManager? and FortiAnalyzer? management and reporting appliances at its Detroit, Mich. headquarters to monitor and analyze network activity and attempted attacks. Driven by rising costs and network complexities, AAM chose to replace its existing multi-vendor security infrastructure to consolidate under Fortinet's integrated security platform.

With annual revenue of $3.25 billion, Fortune 1000-ranked AAM is the world's largest manufacturer of driveline and drivetrain systems, related components and modules, chassis systems and metal-formed products for trucks, sport utility vehicles, passenger cars and crossover utility vehicles. AAM's customer base includes world-class automotive companies such as Audi, Chrysler, Ford, Harley-Davidson, Nissan, Saab and Volvo.

"American Axle's deployment of Fortinet solutions in its branch and core enterprise networks is evidence of the confidence that large enterprise customers have in our technology," said Karl Soderlund, vice president of Americas sales for Fortinet. "Fortinet's scalable, integrated security platforms enable enterprises of all sizes to deploy and centrally manage the security they need for their entire distributed network environment -- from core to end-point -- conveniently, sensibly and cost-effectively."

After previously deploying multiple point products for network security protection, AAM selected Fortinet's integrated approach to network security. In doing so, the company went from having multiple different network security vendors to a single vendor. This approach eliminated licensing fees and efforts, reduced network management costs and the need to manage multiple appliances with different management and analysis platforms. With a consistent graphical user interface across all platforms, the FortiGate appliances allow for easy use and management.

AAM is protecting its network with a variety of Fortinet's FortiGate integrated security appliances. FortiGate-1000A appliances are deployed in high availability mode at AAM headquarters and are providing core firewall protection, replacing the previous Check Point solution.

A variety of FortiGate-50, FortiGate-60, FortiGate-300A and FortiGate-500 appliances are deployed at AAM national and international branch offices to provide branch firewall, intrusion prevention, Web content filtering and antivirus protection as well as to help secure point-to-point SSL virtual private network connectivity.

In addition, three FortiGate-100A appliances are deployed in AAM China, Japan and Korea sites to provide similar levels of protection offered at the national and international locations.

AAM selected Fortinet's FortiManager-400A and FortiAnalyzer-800 carrier-class appliances for deployment at its Michigan headquarters to reduce the complexity of security management, reporting and analysis. The FortiManager system is being used as the central management platform for the Fortinet security infrastructure. The FortiAnalyzer system allows AAM IT staff to aggregate, analyze and report on Internet usage of the international locations and monitor and analyze attempted network attacks. By deploying FortiManager and FortiAnalyzer, AAM can provide country-level and site-specific reports to its worldwide offices.

Fortinet's FortiGate systems are ASIC-accelerated security appliances that integrate essential security applications such as antivirus, firewall, VPN, intrusion prevention, Web filtering, anti-spam and traffic shaping. All FortiGate systems are kept up to date automatically by Fortinet's FortiGuard� Network, which helps ensure protection against the most damaging, content-based threats from email and Web traffic such as viruses, worms, intrusions, other unwanted network traffic and more -- around the clock and around the world.

About American Axle & Manufacturing (www.aam.com)

AAM is a world leader in the manufacture, engineering, design and validation of driveline and drivetrain systems and related components and modules, chassis systems and metal-formed products for trucks, sport utility vehicles, passenger cars and crossover utility vehicles. In addition to locations in the United States (Michigan, New York, Ohio and Indiana), AAM also has offices or facilities in Brazil, China, Germany, India, Japan, Luxembourg, Mexico, Poland, South Korea, Thailand and the United Kingdom.

About Fortinet (www.fortinet.com)

Fortinet is the pioneer and leading provider of ASIC-accelerated unified threat management, or UTM, security systems, which are used by enterprises and service providers to increase their security while reducing total operating costs. Fortinet solutions were built from the ground up to integrate multiple levels of security protection -- including firewall, antivirus, intrusion prevention, VPN, spyware prevention and anti-spam -- designed to help customers protect against network and content level threats. Leveraging a custom ASIC and unified interface, Fortinet solutions offer advanced security functionality that scales from remote office to chassis-based solutions with integrated management and reporting. Fortinet solutions have won multiple awards around the world and are the only security products that are certified in six programs by ICSA Labs (Firewall, Antivirus, IPSec, SSL, Network IPS and Anti-Spam). Fortinet is privately held and based in Sunnyvale, California.

Copyright � 2008 Fortinet, Inc. All rights reserved. The symbols � and ? denote respectively federally registered trademarks and unregistered trademarks of Fortinet, Inc., its subsidiaries and affiliates, including, but not limited to, the following trademarks: Fortinet, FortiGate, FortiGuard, FortiManager, FortiMail, FortiClient, FortiCare, FortiAnalyzer, FortiReporter, FortiOS, FortiASIC, FortiWiFi, FortiSwitch, FortiVoIP, FortiBIOS, FortiLog, FortiResponse, FortiDB, APSecure, and ABACAS. Other trademarks belong to their respective owners.

Media Contact: Maeve Naughton Fortinet, Inc. (408) 486-7819 mnaughton@fortinet.com