Fortinet (FTNT) has released a cloud version of its FortiGate network security platform on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Marketplace. Launched March 26 at AWS Summit 2014 in San Francisco, FortiGate-VM on AWS is designed to help customers "better mitigate blind spots by implementing critical network security controls" such as bi-directional stateful firewalling, intrusion prevention and VPN within their own virtual private clouds (VPCs).

It's not the first time Fortinet has launched a cloud product into the AWS Marketplace (in fact, it's the fourth time). Previously, Fortinet launched FortiManager-VM, FortiAnalyzer-VM and FortiWeb-VM on AWS, providing security-as-a-service offerings to the range of AWS customers and partners.

"We have a number of customers who have requested we port FortiGate-VM onto AWS, and we're happy report that the technology is ready today," said John Maddison, vice president of Marketing at Fortinet, in a prepared statement.

Fortinet positions the cloud-based versions of its appliances as a way to enable the deployment of consolidated network security to protect virtual infrastructure while increasing visibility and control over communications within virtualized and multitenant cloud environments. One particular use case is in scenarios where it's not feasible to deploy dedicated hardware—a scenario that is becoming ever more common as business turn to the cloud.

According to Fortinet, FortiGate-VM and the other cloud security services the company has launched on AWS can scale quickly to meet demand to protect virtual infrastructure. And it represents a potentially lucrative opportunity for AWS/Fortinet partners looking for ways to ensure security over customers cloud infrastructure.

"By bringing their security platform to AWS, Fortinet is providing scalable network security controls to customers around the world," said Brian Matsubara, head of Global Technology Alliances at Amazon Web Services, in a prepared statement.