Cisco SD-WAN Overview
Cisco SD-WAN is a cloud-first architecture that separates data and control planes, managed through the Cisco vManage console. You can quickly establish an SD-WAN overlay fabric to connect data centers, branches, campuses, and co-location facilities to improve network speed, security, and efficiency.
Cisco SDWAN adopts a cloud based solution, it consists of vOrchestrator, vManage, vSmart and vEdge.
-
vOrchestrator is responsible for launching all controllers VMs in the cloud.
-
vManage is the management plane for the overall SDWAN solution. It uses netconf/YANG to talk to vEdge devices.
-
vSmart is the control plane for the overall SDWAN solution. It talks to the vEdge device, acts as the route reflector, key reflector, and policy engine.
-
vEdge is the data plane of the overall SDWAN solution. The IR1101 platform talks to vSmart, vManage, as part of the SDWAN network.
The follow diagram shows the high level architecture of SDWAN:
While Cisco SD-WAN is a cloud-first architecture, some of the components can be deployed on-premisis. Refer to the Cisco SD-WAN landing page for further information on the capabilities of SD-WAN.
Starting with IOS XE release 17.3.2, the IOS XE image can be configured as controller mode to run SD-WAN. A single universalk9 image is used to deploy Cisco IOS XE SD-WAN and Cisco IOS XE functionality. This universalk9 image supports two modes - Autonomous mode (for Cisco IOS XE features) and Controller mode (for Cisco SD-WAN features).
Access the Cisco IOS XE and Cisco IOS XE SD-WAN functionality through Autonomous and Controller execution modes, respectively. The Autonomous mode is the default mode for the router and includes the Cisco IOS XE functionality. To access Cisco IOS XE SD-WAN functionality, switch to the Controller mode. You can use the existing Plug and Play Workflow to determine the mode of the device. See the Cisco SD-WAN Getting Started Guide for further information.
 Note |
The PnP process works on either the Gi0/0/0 or Cellular interface. |
Feedback