NSE7 Advanced Networking and SD-WAN Practice Question
A FortiGate is configured with ECMP load balancing. What is the default behavior when multiple routes have equal cost?
⚠ Common exam trap
Test-takers frequently confuse ECMP with per-packet load balancing or assume that FortiGate defaults to a failover model, but the NSE7 exam expects you to know that ECMP uses a hash algorithm for per-session load balancing by default, not per-packet or primary-backup.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Traffic is load balanced across the routes using a hash algorithm
When ECMP load balancing is configured on a FortiGate, the default behavior is to distribute traffic across multiple equal-cost routes using a hash algorithm. This hash algorithm considers fields such as source/destination IP, protocol, and ports to ensure session consistency, meaning all packets belonging to the same session follow the same path. This is the standard ECMP behavior in FortiOS, as documented in the FortiGate Administration Guide.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
The route with the lowest metric is always preferred
Why it's wrong here
ECMP implies equal metric; if metrics differ, it's not ECMP.
- ✗
The administrator must enable per-packet load balancing
Why it's wrong here
Per-packet is not default; it's a special configuration.
- ✓
Traffic is load balanced across the routes using a hash algorithm
Why this is correct
ECMP uses source-destination hashing to distribute sessions.
- ✗
All traffic is sent over the first route until it fails
Why it's wrong here
That would be non-ECMP behavior.
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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This NSE7 practice question is part of Courseiva's free Fortinet certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the NSE7 exam.