Preparing for deployment
This documentation assumes that before deploying the FortiGate-VM on the VMware ESXi virtual platform, you have addressed the following requirements:
Virtual environment
You have installed the VMware ESXi software on a physical server with sufficient resources to support the FortiGate-VM and all other VMs deployed on the platform.
If you configure the FortiGate-VM to operate in transparent mode, or include it in a FortiGate clustering protocol high availability cluster, configure any virtual switches to support the FortiGate-VM's operation before you create the FortiGate-VM.
Management software
You can access the VMware vSphere in one of the following ways:
- Directly via the ESXi web GUI
- Via the vSphere Web Client if a vCenter is managing the ESXi server
Connectivity
The FortiGate-VM requires an Internet connection to contact FortiGuard to validate its license. If the FortiGate-VM is in a closed environment, it must be able to connect to a FortiManager to validate the FortiGate-VM license. See Validating the FortiGate-VM license with FortiManager.