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New Features in Cisco SD-WAN Release 20.5.x

New Features in Cisco SD-WAN Release 20.5.x 

With the new dashboard and the new features added on to Cisco Viptela SDWAN throughout, Cisco is continuously upgrading it and is always on par with the latest enhancements.

Cisco Viptela SDWAN
SD-WAN so called Software Defined WAN solution, where control plane or management plane is separated from the physical devices, while in the Viptela solution we have following architecture, where we have data-plane on the physical devices (obviously), Control Plane by VSmart or VBond Management tool, Management Plane via VManage and Orchestration plane.

Fig 1.1- Cisco SDWAN Design

Features in Cisco Viptela SDWAN release 20.5.x
So let's talk about what new features has been added on the Cisco Viptela SDWAN release 20.5.x

Routing & Policies

  • Cisco vSmart Controller paths can now be exchanged between 128 Cisco vSmart Controllers with the new OMP limit for the Cisco vSmart Controllers.
  • A centralized data policy can be enhanced with Next Hop Action Enhancement to conform to the features configured on Cisco vEdge devices. By configuring next-hop-loose actions, you can redirect traffic to an existing route when the next-hop address is unavailable.
  • Using Best of the Worst Tunnel Selection you will be able to select the optimal path or color out of the available ones. This feature allows you to select the optimal tunnel path criterion under each SLA class to prevent packet loss when data traffic fails to meet the requirements.
  • Data plane Tunnel Dampening minimizes the effects of tunnel flapping on WAN links by introducing a configurable delay (dampening) mechanism on them. By dampening a tunnel, it is removed from the class of SLA until it no longer flaps and becomes stable.

Security, High Availability & Cloud OnRamp

  • A Layer 7 Health Check feature that integrates automatic tunnels to SIGs is included with the Layer 7 Health Check feature. A tracker is also created for monitoring and load balancing or failover tunnels when you create an automatic tunnel with the Cisco Secure Internet Gateway (SIG) template for Zscaler or Cisco Umbrella. Tracker parameters can be customized based on how the tracker balances or fails over tunnels.
  • The Cisco SD-WAN to Zscaler tunnel provisioning feature automates the process. You can provision Zscaler Public Service Edges (ZIA) tunnels automatically by using your Zscaler partner API credentials. If you want to automate tunnel provisioning with Cisco Security Internet Gateway (SIG) and SIG credentials feature templates, you can choose Zscaler.
  • For deployments of Cisco vManage with a single primary node, the Disaster Recovery for a Single Node Cisco vManage Cluster feature is available.
  • The Cisco vManage clone service groups feature lets you create copies of service groups for different RBAC users without having to enter the same configuration information multiple times. Utilizing the stored service chain templates, you can easily create service chains by cloning a service group.
  • The Role-Based Access Control feature of Colocation Multitenancy allows a service provider to manage multiple colocation clusters and share them among tenants with the help of multiple colocation groups. Providers do not need to deploy a unique colocation cluster for each tenant in a multitenant setup. Rather, colocation clusters share hardware resources among multiple tenants. Multitenancy allows service providers to restrict access based on the roles of tenants to ensure that only their data is viewed.