NSE7 Advanced Networking and SD-WAN Practice Question
An administrator is troubleshooting BGP with SD-WAN. They have configured BGP on the FortiGate and the SD-WAN rule uses 'best quality' strategy. However, failover does not happen when a WAN link goes down. The BGP session is still up. What is the most likely reason?
⚠ Common exam trap
Watch out — candidates often assume BGP session state alone determines link usability, but FortiGate SD-WAN requires explicit performance SLA monitoring of the BGP next hop to trigger failover in a 'best quality' strategy.
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
✓
The performance SLA is not configured to track the BGP next hop.
The 'best quality' SD-WAN strategy selects the best path based on performance SLA metrics. Without a performance SLA monitoring the BGP next hop, the FortiGate cannot detect that the link has failed from a BGP perspective, so it will not trigger a failover even if the physical interface goes down. The BGP session remains up because it is still receiving keepalives, but the SD-WAN rule does not consider the link unusable without SLA tracking.
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 performance SLA is not configured to track the BGP next hop.
Why this is correct
For SD-WAN to detect link failure, the performance SLA must monitor the actual path to the BGP next hop or internet. BGP session may remain up via an alternate path, but the link may be degraded.
- ✗
The SD-WAN rule is configured with 'set update-static-route disable'.
Why it's wrong here
That setting affects route updates, not failover based on SLA.
- ✗
The BGP session is using eBGP multihop.
Why it's wrong here
Multihop does not prevent failover detection.
- ✗
The load balancing algorithm is set to 'volume'.
Why it's wrong here
Algorithm affects distribution, not failover.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
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