NSE7 Enterprise Firewall Practice Exam 2025 - Free Enterprise Firewall Practice Questions and Study Guide

The correct answer is B, as ECMP, or Equal-Cost Multi-Path routing, is specifically designed to allow multiple equal-cost routes to a destination. In FortiGate, ECMP can be used with static, BGP (Border Gateway Protocol), and OSPF (Open Shortest Path First) routing protocols.

When ECMP is enabled, the FortiGate device can distribute traffic across multiple paths that have the same cost, effectively optimizing the utilization of network resources. This enhances throughput and provides redundancy; if one path fails, traffic can be rerouted seamlessly through another equal-cost path.

Static routing allows for manually specified paths, while BGP and OSPF are dynamic routing protocols that automatically determine the best routes based on different algorithms and metrics. ECMP expands the routing capabilities of all these protocols by improving load balancing between them. Hence, it is relevant and applicable across static, BGP, and OSPF scenarios.

While static routing, dynamic routing, and path selection are important concepts for routing traffic within a network, they do not encapsulate the functionality of load balancing through multiple equal-cost paths, which is precisely what ECMP provides in the context of FortiGate.