Azure Route Server simplifies dynamic routing by allowing your FortiGate VMs to exchange BGP routes directly with Azure’s networking fabric. This eliminates the need to manually update route tables and enables seamless, centralized communication between on-premises branches and Azure resources through both VPN Gateway and ExpressRoute Gateway.

The Reverse Proxy mode is the most appropriate FortiWeb operation mode for this scenario. In this mode, FortiWeb sits between internet users and the Linux web servers, terminating client connections and then forwarding requests to the backend servers. This enables deep inspection, protection from web attacks (like SQL injection and XSS), and full WAF functionality, making it ideal for securing front-end web servers exposed to the internet.

Azure ExpressRoute provides dedicated private connections between on-premises infrastructure and Azure data centers, bypassing the public internet. This results in more predictable latency, higher reliability, and better security, making it ideal for mission-critical workloads.