Peer knowledge sharing
The configs, the gotchas, the upgrade that went sideways at 2 a.m. Real deployments from the people who run them — not slideware from the people who sell them.
First Event
Tue, Sept 15
5:30 PM PT
Virtual
FortiPNW
A community-led Fortinet user group for Pacific Northwest practitioners.
By engineers, for engineers.
Join the Community
Free to join. No sales calls, no pitch decks.
What This Is
A room where the real answers get said out loud.
Honest product feedback
What works, what doesn't, and what you'd change. We collect it plainly and pass it upstream — unfiltered, and with your name off it if you want it off.
No vendor agenda
Nothing is sold here. No pitches, no lead capture, no talk that needs vendor sign‑off. Criticizing the product in the room isn't just allowed — it's the entire point. Who's involved and who pays →
Who It's For
Practitioners.
If you touch a FortiGate, a FortiAnalyzer, or a support ticket about one — you're in the right place.
- Network engineers Running FortiGate at the edge, in the data center, or across a sprawl of branch sites.
- Security architects Designing segmentation, SD-WAN, and Fabric integrations that have to survive an audit.
- MSP & MSSP engineers Managing dozens of tenants and every firmware version that ever shipped.
- Cert candidates Working the NSE / Fortinet Certified tracks and looking for study partners who've done the labs.
- Anyone on-call for it Sysadmins, IT generalists, and the person who inherited the firewall. Especially you.
Ground Rules
How we keep this honest.
Fortinet funds the room and a Fortinet SE helps run the group. Here's the machinery that keeps it from becoming a pitch.
Events
Monthly online. Quarterly in the room.
A cadence tight enough to stay useful, light enough that nobody burns out running it.
Virtual
Every month · 60 minThe backbone. One hour, one topic, screen shares and real configs. Keeps the community warm between the in-person nights.
- WhenTuesday or Wednesday
- Start5:30 PM Pacific
- Length60 minutes
In‑person
4× a year · EveningWhere the relationships actually get built. We rotate between Tacoma and Seattle so nobody is always the one driving.
- Doors5:30 · Session 6:00 · Networking 7:00
Q1 Tacoma
Q2 Seattle
Q3 Tacoma
Q4 Seattle
16 touchpoints a year — 12 virtual, 4 in‑person.
Sep
15
Tue
Next up — Inaugural
FortiPNW Kickoff — Virtual
The first one. What the group is, what it isn't, and what you want out of it — then we pick the topics for the rest of the year together.
Get NotifiedAn annual PNW summit Someday — not scheduled
A full-day regional event is the long-term goal, once the group is big enough to fill a room and deep enough to fill an agenda. We'd rather earn it than announce it.
First in‑person meetup targeted for January or February, once the community has momentum. Dates and venues go out to the list first.
About
Started because the room didn't exist yet.
FortiPNW started the way most user groups do: Pacific Northwest engineers comparing notes on deployments, firmware, and the fixes you only hear about from someone who already hit the bug. There was no local venue for that conversation, so we're building one.
The group is run by a steering committee of practitioners — the people who actually operate this gear. They pick the topics, choose the speakers, and set the agenda. It's free to attend, and nothing lands on the agenda because someone paid for it to.
It was co‑founded by a Fortinet Sales Engineer who serves as the group's liaison to the vendor. We'd rather tell you that in the second paragraph than have you find it out later.
Full disclosure — Fortinet's role
Let's be direct about this, because a user group that hides its vendor ties isn't worth joining.
- A Fortinet Sales Engineer helped found the group and serves as our liaison. He gets us access to engineering resources, roadmap context, and answers we can't dig up ourselves — and he carries your feedback back to Fortinet, unfiltered and anonymized if you want it that way.
- Fortinet is expected to cover venue costs for in‑person events — and food, if we do food. That's the extent of it. Rooms aren't free and this group has no budget of its own. If that funding ever comes with strings attached, we'll tell you, or we'll find another room.
- What that does not buy: the agenda, the speaker list, or approval over what gets said. The steering committee is made up of practitioners, not Fortinet employees, and they hold those decisions. Nobody is selling to you, capturing you as a lead, or scoring you as a pipeline.
That's the whole arrangement — and here's how we enforce it →