PCs running the FortiClient application are client-side peers that initiate WAN optimization tunnels with server-side peer FortiGate units. However, you can have an ever-changing number of FortiClient peers with IP addresses that also change regularly. To avoid maintaining a list of such peers, you can instead configure WAN optimization to accept any peer and use authentication to identify FortiClient peers.

Together, the WAN optimization peers apply the WAN optimization features to optimize the traffic flow over the WAN between the clients and servers. WAN optimization reduces bandwidth requirements, increases throughput, reduces latency, offloads SSL encryption/decryption and improves privacy for traffic on the WAN.

For more details, see “FortiClient WAN optimization”.