Comprehensive and Detailed 150 to 200 words of Explanation From Exact Extract of Enterprise Firewall 7.6 Administrator documents:
According to the FortiOS 7.6 Administration Guide and the FortiGate Infrastructure study materials, inter-VDOM communication can be achieved using either software-based VDOM links or hardware-accelerated NPU VDOM links (vlinks).
While standard VDOM links (Option B) allow traffic to pass between VDOMs, they are processed by the system CPU, which can become a bottleneck in high-throughput environments. To ensure accelerated internet access as specified in the requirements, NPU vlinks (Option C) must be used. NPU vlinks are virtual interfaces created in pairs that allow traffic to be offloaded to the FortiGate’s Network Processor (NP6, NP7, etc.), significantly reducing latency and CPU overhead.
In the provided exhibit, the root VDOM has direct internet access, while VDOM1 and VDOMn do not. By configuring NPU vlinks between the non-root VDOMs and the root VDOM, you create a hardware-accelerated path. Traffic from the internal VDOMs is sent through the vlink to the root VDOM, which then forwards it to the Internet. This " hub-and-spoke " VDOM architecture, powered by NPU acceleration, ensures that all VDOMs share the internet connection without sacrificing performance.