Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Data Sheet

 

With the continued transition to multicloud and hybrid environments, it has become essential for IT to pivot their networks to support a distributed workforce, provide seamless and secure access to business-critical applications across all clouds, deliver superior experience, and gain insights to enable them to respond to business demands faster.

Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN connects any user to any application with integrated capabilities for multicloud, security, predictive operations, and enhanced network visibility —all on a SASE-enabled architecture. Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN enables you to transform your IT infrastructure by delivering network connectivity that’s cloud-agnostic, efficient and simpler to manage, lowers operational costs and increases control and visibility across the entire digital service delivery chain.

Solution overview

Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN provides a flexible architecture to extend SD-WAN to any environment (Figure 1). The solution automatically discovers, authenticates, and provisions both new and existing Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN devices.

Flexible and scalable architecture for network transformation

The Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN (Figure 2) connects all company data centers, core and campus locations, WAN branches, colocation facilities, cloud infrastructure, and remote workers. Using the Overlay Management Protocol (OMP), Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN provides centralized control over the entire network. It simplifies IT operations with automated provisioning, unified policies, and streamlined management to help ensure rapid updates and resolutions, and provides advanced network functionality, reliability, and security.

Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Manager dashboard showing network and application health

The global network topology with site and tunnel health.

After connecting to Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN, each network device can find the best path to the applications that reside in the data center or multicloud. Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN can use any transport method (satellite, broadband, Multiprotocol Label Switching [MPLS], 5G/LTE) from any location (core, edge, cloud) for any network service (security, application- voice). Through OMP, Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN supports both common and advanced routing protocols that are necessary for managing networks across the WAN and cloud, such as Border Gateway Protocol (BGP), Enhanced Interior Gateway Routing Protocol (EIGRP), Equal-Cost Multipath (ECMP) routing, Open Shortest Path First (OSPF), Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol (VRRP), and IPv6. Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN provides this flexibility for both full and partial mesh deployments, allowing maximum customization based on business needs.

Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Analytics is a SaaS component of the solution that provides enhanced visibility into network and application performance, along with historical trend information to establish benchmarks and expedite root cause analysis. In addition, it offers predictive network capabilities, enabling enterprises to take corrective actions and gain total control of the user experience.

Table 1.           Features and benefits

Prominent features

Best-in-class technology innovation

●     Fully integrated security everywhere.

◦    Distributed Security Enforcement (DSE) framework, which includes - Embedded security (Next Generation Firewall), fabric security, SD-WAN integration with cloud security, monitoring and visibility and certifications and compliance.

◦    On-premises Security with NGFW, Advanced IPS, AMP with Sandboxing, URL-Filtering, TLS proxy, Unified logging, Identity Firewall support.

◦    Cloud Security Integration with Cisco Umbrella for an integrated single vendor SASE Solution.

◦    Modular SASE solution through integration with third-party SSE cloud security provides, including Zscaler, Netskope, Palo Alto, Cloudflare, and Skyhigh.

◦    Integration with third-party SIEM and SOAR vendors, including Splunk, Microsoft Sentinel and Live Action, enhances monitoring and visibility, offering actionable insights into network and security events.

◦    A centralized view of network security events with actionable threat data for security operations center teams through the Catalyst SD-WAN Manager Security dashboard.

◦    Routing intelligence and threat intelligence on a certified trustworthy infrastructure.

◦    Industry leading Threat detection and response powered by the Talos engine.

●     True SD-WAN architecture

◦    Separate and dedicated components for the control plane, data plane, and management and orchestration of the WAN.

◦    Flexibility to implement overlay, underlay, physical, and virtual networks.

◦    Voice and unified communications support.

◦    IPv6 support (BGP, OSPF).

◦    AIOps capabilities such as Predictive Path Recommendations powered by ThousandEyes WAN Insights and bandwidth forecasting.

●     Robust IP multicast support

◦    Enables network traffic control, enhances efficiency by eliminating traffic redundancy, and reduces server and CPU loads.

◦    Efficiently handles one-to-many or many-to-many communications.

◦    Provides multicast capability across platforms (Protocol Independent Multicast Source-Specific Multicast [PIM-SSM], Internet Group Management Protocol [IGMP] v2, and IGMP v3).

●     Enhanced application visibility

◦    Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Analytics offers historical and correlated site, device, circuit, tunnel, and application health information for better visibility.

◦    Integrated with Cisco ThousandEyes to bring end-to-end visibility into application delivery and network performance.

◦    Extends end-to-end granular insights into network health and application performance with a full hop-by-hop analysis across the internet and cloud.

◦    Isolates fault domains and provides actionable insights that drastically expedite troubleshooting and resolution, before users are affected.

●     Investment protection

◦    Leverages traditional transport protocols for the best application experience

◦    Allows you to simply upgrade existing Cisco routers with SD-WAN functionality if you prefer

◦    Enhances capacity planning capabilities with Bandwidth Forecasting functionality within Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Analytics

◦    Flexible multicloud deployment options

◦    Cloud OnRamp for Multicloud

◦    Cloud OnRamp for SaaS (with Cisco IOS^® XE support)

◦    Cloud OnRamp for Colocation

◦    Cloud OnRamp for Cloud Interconnect

◦    Cloud OnRamp for Cloud Hub

Software feature matrix

Licensing

Cisco DNA Software for SD-WAN and Routing

Cisco DNA Software subscription licensing offers three feature tiers: Cisco DNA Essentials, Cisco DNA Advantage, and Cisco DNA Premier. These are nested SKUs and represent good, better, and best offers. All are available as a 3-year or 5-year subscription and have bandwidth tier options. Cisco DNA Advantage is also available as a 7-year subscription.

Benefits:

●     The latest innovations through simple subscription tiers

●     Available across the portfolio

●     Flexibility to choose on-premises or cloud management

●     Easy license portability across on-premises and cloud

●     Easy upgrade across tiers

●     Software Support Service (SWSS) included

For more information on Cisco DNA Software subscriptions, go to: https://www.cisco.com/c/m/en_us/products/software/sd-wan-routing-matrix.html?oid=otren019258.

Cisco DNA Software subscription licensing for SD-WAN and routing

For more information, review the Cisco DNA Software for SD-WAN and Routing Ordering Guide.

Other buying programs are available, including Enterprise Agreements (EA) and Managed Service Licensing Agreement (MSLA). A Cisco Enterprise Agreement provides a simpler way to manage licenses and reduces costs, and a single agreement covers the purchase of software and subscription licenses as well as application software support. The MSLA helps partners align business costs with a subscription-based model for their customers.

Cisco ThousandEyes

A valid ThousandEyes agent license is required to activate the ThousandEyes agent. Existing ThousandEyes subscriptions can be leveraged on the supported router platforms. For additional ThousandEyes subscription information, go to https://www.thousandeyes.com/signup/?utm_source=Cisco&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=CiscoSD-WAN.

Cisco Capital

Flexible payment solutions to help you achieve your objectives

Cisco Capital^® makes it easier to get the right technology to achieve your objectives, enable business transformation, and stay competitive. We can help you reduce the total cost of ownership, conserve capital, and accelerate growth. In more than 100 countries, our flexible payment solutions can help you acquire hardware, software, services, and complementary third-party equipment in easy, predictable payments. Learn more.

For more information

See how Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN can help you move faster, lower costs, and reduce risk: https://cisco.com/go/sdwan.

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