Fortinet FortiGate 1801F-DC FortiCare Premium to Elite Upgrade, 1-Year (FC-10-D18F1-204-02-12)

Support teams running a FortiGate 1801F-DC on an active FortiCare Premium plan can step up to Elite-tier coverage for a single year with the FortiGate 1801F-DC 1-Year Upgrade, FortiCare Premium to Elite (FC-10-D18F1-204-02-12). It’s an add-on layered on top of the existing Premium license, not a standalone plan: Fortinet requires a current Premium subscription on the unit’s serial number before the upgrade applies, and once it does, critical-issue response tightens from one hour to 15 minutes for the full twelve months.

What the upgrade changes

The FortiGate 1801F-DC keeps its existing FortiCare Premium registration; this SKU stacks Elite service on top of it for one year:

• Faster response times: critical-issue response drops from Premium’s one hour to 15 minutes, and non-critical response moves from next-business-day to two business hours.
• Elite device-insights portal: a consolidated monitoring dashboard with proactive health and posture recommendations, available only at the Elite tier.
• 18-month extended end-of-engineering-support (E-EoES): qualifying long-term-support (LTS) firmware builds gain extra runway past the standard support window.
• RMA class unchanged: Elite doesn’t change the hardware RMA type on this model. Both Premium and Elite ship Standard RMA with Advanced Replacement on the 1801F-DC; a separate Priority or Secure RMA add-on is the way to speed up physical hardware turnaround.

A one-year term suits a team that wants Elite response times in place now, tied to this year’s budget cycle, without committing three or five years out. It’s also the natural choice for a 1801F-DC that’s mid-refresh evaluation or awaiting a longer support contract decision.

FortiCare tier comparison

This upgrade moves the FortiGate 1801F-DC from the Premium column below into the Elite column. Essential is shown for reference as the baseline tier on FortiGate hardware:

Who upgrades from Premium to Elite

The 1801F-DC is a chassis-class firewall built for high-throughput core and data-center duty, so an hour-long wait on a critical fault is often an hour too many. DC-powered deployments run this model in telecom facilities, colocation sites, and industrial plants where a fault has an immediate operational cost, which is exactly where Elite’s 15-minute response and the proactive device-insights portal earn their keep. If the unit can absorb next-business-day turnaround on the rare critical issue, Premium alone is the more practical spend; if downtime on this specific unit is expensive, a one-year Elite upgrade closes that gap without locking in a multi-year term.

Activation and delivery

Fortinet applies the upgrade electronically against the FortiGate 1801F-DC’s serial number, layering it directly on the existing FortiCare Premium registration tied to that unit. Nothing ships and no technician visit is required. Once processed, Elite response times and portal access are active for the full one-year term.

Buying from DataCenter360.ca

DataCenter360.ca fulfills this upgrade as a genuine electronic Fortinet license under our Select Partner authorization, regardless of the buyer’s country. If it isn’t clear whether the 1801F-DC currently on file qualifies for the upgrade, we’ll confirm eligibility against the serial number before checkout so there are no surprises after payment.