Application Control and Traffic Shaping

Application control

Traditional firewalls make decisions on ports; modern apps hop ports and tunnel over HTTPS. FortiGate application control uses FortiGuard signatures to identify apps by behavior — so you can allow Microsoft 365 while blocking peer-to-peer file sharing, even on the same port.

• Apply an application control profile to a firewall policy.

• Use categories (e.g. Proxy, P2P, Game) for broad rules and specific signatures for exceptions.

• Pair with deep inspection so encrypted apps can be identified.

Traffic shaping

Shaping controls bandwidth so critical traffic is not starved by bulk transfers. FortiGate offers:

• Shared shapers — apply a total bandwidth limit/guarantee across matching traffic.

• Per-IP shapers — cap each host so one user cannot saturate the link.

• Application-based shaping — combine app control with a shaper to, say, throttle streaming while guaranteeing VoIP.

config firewall shaper traffic-shaper
    edit "guarantee-voip"
        set guaranteed-bandwidth 2000
        set priority high
    next
end

What it means for you

Application control gives you visibility and policy over what is really on your network; traffic shaping ensures the important things stay fast. Together they turn a firewall into an application-aware policy engine.