Fortinet FortiGate 1800F FortiCare Premium to Elite Upgrade, 1-Year (FC-10-F18HF-204-02-12)

A FortiGate 1800F running on FortiCare Premium already gets one-hour response on critical issues, but some data center deployments need faster. The FC-10-F18HF-204-02-12 upgrades an existing FortiCare Premium entitlement on a FortiGate 1800F to FortiCare Elite for one year, dropping critical-issue response to 15 minutes and unlocking the Elite device insights portal. Subscription only, no hardware included, delivered electronically worldwide.

What this upgrade covers

This SKU does not sell FortiCare from scratch, it lifts a FortiGate 1800F that already carries an active FortiCare Premium license up to the Elite tier for the term purchased. Applied to the appliance, it changes:

• Critical-issue response: from Premium’s one-hour SLA down to 15 minutes.
• Non-critical response: from next-business-day down to 2 business hours.
• Extended End-of-Engineering-Support (E-EoES): an added 18 months on selected long-term-support (LTS) releases, giving more runway before a forced firmware jump.
• Device Insights monitoring portal: a proactive dashboard with health and security recommendations for the 1800F, an Elite-only feature not present on Premium.
• RMA eligibility: Elite keeps Standard RMA (advanced replacement) and stays eligible for the optional Priority RMA and Secure RMA add-ons, same as Premium, but with the faster response wrapped around it.

The table below summarizes how Elite compares to the Premium tier this SKU upgrades from, and to the base Essential tier for reference.

Who needs the upgrade

This fits FortiGate 1800F deployments where the box already carries FortiCare Premium but the environment has grown more critical since that purchase, a core data center firewall, a PCI-scoped segment, or a site where an hour of downtime during a P1 incident is no longer acceptable. Rather than letting the Premium term run out and buying Elite fresh, the upgrade SKU applies Elite entitlements to the existing license for the remaining commitment, so the coverage change lines up with the current subscription instead of forcing a full re-purchase.

Activation and delivery

DataCenter360.ca requires an active FortiCare Premium license already registered against the FortiGate 1800F’s serial number before this upgrade can be applied, hence “Require FortiCare Premium” in Fortinet’s own SKU description. Once ordered, Fortinet applies the Elite entitlement to that existing registration through the support portal. Nothing ships, there is no hardware component, and the change takes effect on the same device the Premium license was already tied to.

One-year upgrade vs. longer terms

This is the 1-year term of the FortiCare Premium-to-Elite upgrade for the FortiGate 1800F. Fortinet also lists 3-year and 5-year versions of the same upgrade, useful when the underlying Premium term (or the hardware bundle it rides on) runs longer and both should expire on the same renewal date. Matching the upgrade term to whatever Premium or bundle term is already active on the 1800F avoids a mismatched renewal date down the line.

Buying from DataCenter360.ca

DataCenter360.ca sells this upgrade as an authorized Fortinet Select Partner, and licensing ships the same way everywhere, electronically, with no regional restriction, since there’s no physical hardware to move. Have the FortiGate 1800F’s serial number and current FortiCare Premium status on hand at checkout so the Elite entitlement lands on the right device without a support ticket back and forth.