Cisco SD-WAN Architecture | Control, Data, Management Planes

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Cisco SD-WAN (Viptela SD-WAN) Architecture

In SD-WAN Cisco (formerly SD-WAN Viptela), Cisco SD-WAN Architecture consist of four main SD-WAN Planes. Each of this SD-WAN Planes has specific duty in Cisco SD-WAN Architecture (Formerly Viptela SD-WAN Architecture). These SD-WAN Planes are given below:

Orchestration Plane
Management Plane
Control Plane
Data Plane

Cisco SD-WAN Planes

Now, let’s check Cisco SD-WAN Architecture planes one by one and learn each of these plane’s responsibility in the SD-WAN Architecture.

What is SD-WAN Orchestration Plane?

SD-WAN Orchestration Plane is responsible for the orchestration of Management Plane and Control Plane. Basically it is a coordinator.

Key Point: The Orchestration Plane handles device authentication and onboarding, ensuring that all SD-WAN devices securely join the network.

vBond is the Orchestration Plane part of the SD-WAN Architecture. vBond distributes the list of the Management Plane component (vManage) and Control Plane components (vSmarts) to the Data Plane devices.

SD-WAN Orchestration Plane is also the first plane for the authentication.

What is SD-WAN Management Plane?

In the Cisco SD-WAN Architecture, the main duty of SD-WAN Management Plane is the central management of the network. With this plane the configuration is done iin a centrallly. The network monitoring is also one of the responsibilities of this Plane.

Key Point: The Management Plane provides centralized configuration, monitoring, and administration of the entire SD-WAN infrastructure.

For Management Plane, vManage NMS is used. vManage is a Network Mangement System of Viptela which is acquired by Cisco. With vManage, network can be managed centrally with the help of a GUI. You can configure, monitor, troubleshoot, maintain, etc. your SD WAN devices over vManage.

What is SD-WAN Control Plane?

SD-WAN Conrol Plane is responsible for the network topology creation and maintenance in SD-WAN Architecture. It is responsible for routing decisions and policy distributions. It decides the traffic destinations. With these decisions, Data Plane forwards the traffic.

Key Point: The Control Plane is responsible for routing decisions and policy distribution across the SD-WAN network.

The devices used in Cisco SD-WAN Conrol Plane are vSmart Controller.

SD-WAN Data Plane

The role of SD-WAN Data Plane is Traffic Forwarding. Without any decision, Data Plane forwards the data through its destination according to the Control Plane decision.

Key Point: The Data Plane forwards actual user traffic based on policies, ensuring efficient and optimized data delivery between sites.

SD WAN Data Plane consist of SD-WAN Routers, Cisco vEdge devices.

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