Short answer
No. FortiAnalyzer Cloud is Fortinet's own service, typically hosted in US or EU regions and billed in US dollars. FirstNet's FortiAnalyzer as a Service (FAZaaS) is hosted in South Africa, billed in rands and operated by FirstNet, so log data stays in South Africa during normal operation.
In detail
How the options compare:
- FAZaaS: a dedicated FortiAnalyzer-VM on FirstNet-operated infrastructure in South Africa, as a monthly rand service based on a storage bundle, with FirstNet handling patching, upgrades, backups and capacity monitoring
- FortiAnalyzer Cloud: hosted offshore by Fortinet, an annual US dollar subscription, with Fortinet as the support path
- Self-hosted FortiAnalyzer-VM or appliance: you run the platform yourself under a Fortinet licence
All routes use the same FortiAnalyzer engine, so the analytics are comparable. The difference is hosting location, currency and who operates it.
This matters for POPIA planning. With FAZaaS your organisation remains the responsible party, but logs are not routinely hosted offshore. If you buy FortiAnalyzer Cloud directly, your compliance assessment must account for cross-border data.
Source: FirstNet Hosted Firewall & Network Security service page →
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