Key Features of Cisco SD-WAN 20.6.3

[Sutheendiran Vijendiran]

Cisco SD-WAN Version 20.6.3 offers major usability benefits across all use cases.  There are enhancement to SD-WAN Infrastructures, SDCI and SD-WAN Security, with innovation and Improvement around Cloud Networking, Operational Efficiency and Application Experiences.

We have put together the table below to give you a quick look at some of the key features in this release.

Feel free to ask any questions about upgrading your Cisco SD-WAN software using the "comment" section below the post.

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Capability	Feature​​​	Description​	Pre 20.6.3.1​
vManage	SDWAN UX2.0-Phase 1-Cohesion Design ​	UX 2.0 Day-0 Quick Connect workflow enables you to create device templates to onboard Wan Edge devices with ZTP/PnP, and to generate bootstrap CLI configuration. It is a new, user-friendly UI and intuitive workflow.​	Previously, ​you didn’t have a very intuitive vManage GUI workflow, which makes the Day-0 SD-WAN onboarding difficult with an outdated GUI. ​
	ThousandEyes integration w/ ISR4K, Cat8300, Cat8200 ​	With ThousandEyes Integration, vManage can deploy and provision agent software on the router itself. You can even monitor the underlay of SD-WAN fabric, which helps isolate/fix issues quickly.​	Previously, ​to monitor your network, you were forced to host the agent software on an external x86 appliance, which can be hard to manage, and so is also the case for any additional equipment within the branch.​
Core & Infra​​	6+ SLA classes support ​	Having 6+ SLA classes per policy gives you additional options in App-Aware Routing. The SLA enhancement also facilitates multi-tenancy deployment, allowing you to push different SLA classes for different tenants. ​	Previously, you weren’t able to create more than 6 SLA classes on a policy for your application, which leads you to create a larger number of policies in the fabric and complicates policy management. ​
	Per VPN QoS ​ Service-Side Port Channels ​	This enhanced version of the QoS feature brings another layer of support to traffic throughput on per-VPN basis and delivers various QoS services used on one interface for different VPNs.​ Port channels are now available, providing fault-tolerance and traffic redistribution across the remaining links, if any link fails. It also helps increase bandwidth between Cisco IOS XE SD-WAN devices and others such as switches and servers in the network.​	Previously, ​you were restricted to use 2 QoS modules, (Adaptive and per-tunnel), which leads all service VPN traffic to utilize the same SD-WAN resources/bandwidth. ​ Previously, you didn’t have a feature to do link aggregation in your environment with any Layer 3 devices, which leads to low resiliency and limits bandwidth usage.​
Services	Cisco SD-WAN SDCI w/ Megaport (Azure and  GCP Support)  ​ Equinix (AWS Support, Site to Site Support) ​	You can deploy a Cisco Catalyst 8000v as the interconnect gateway in the Megaport fabric and connect your SD-WAN branch location. From there, you can create Software Defined Cloud Interconnect to Google and Microsoft Azure Cloud to link your branch location to the cloud resources through the Megaport fabric. ​ Similarly, the Catalyst 8Kv can be deployed as the interconnect gateway in the Equinix fabric, allowing you to create SD interconnect to an AWS Cloud or another in the Equinix fabric. ​	Previously, ​there was Megaport support only for AWS Cloud, which limits the customer options to explore other CSPs. ​ As for Equinix, there was no support at all. ​
	CoR over SIG tunnels​ Layer 7 health check to Umbrella ​	CloudOnRamp over SIG tunnels provides the best path performance for your SaaS applications.​ L7 health check will be enabled by default for all SIG auto-tunnels to monitor latency and reachability based on HTTP request and response probes to a URL that is reachable through the SIG tunnels. This allows you to fail over to an alternate tunnel when reachability fails, or latency degrades beyond an acceptable threshold.​	Previously, ​you didn't have a Secure Internet Gateway for your SaaS applications with CloudOnRamp.​  Previously, you weren't able to monitor the IPsec tunnel health to detect brown outs and dynamically influence traffic forwarding based on high performing tunnels. ​

Reference: 

20.6.3 x Release notes​

​What's New with 20 6 3 x

Cisco’s SD-WAN Controller Compatibility Matrix

SD-WAN release 20.6.3.1 release download

[fjleon]

Excelent overview! Very interested in per VPN QoS and  Azure addition.

[acastle007]

Great Job, continue working on it!!!

[Alf_S_L]

Will it be possible to cap/limit bandwidth per VPN?

[ramadani]

not use SD-Wan cisco yet, but i'm interesting to learn more

[amit.chudasama@wipro.com]

Thanks for detailed overview

[juancarlosorellana]

I like konws more about thousand eyes + sdwan fabric

[hstoddart]

We do not use Cisco SD-WAN yet, but Thank you for the overview!

[mike.newton]

I am interested in more information on the gateway creatin in the Equinix fabric for AWS.  Are there any general details available?  Or do we research this from the Equinix portal?  Thank you!

[Johnpell]

Like the integration into Equinix fabric, that sounds cool

[outman.yudha]

Thanks for updated information. nice update.

Can not wait to chatch up with SDWAN again in the future with new update..

[bbubbers]

Thanks for sharing, always nice to get the infos

[JustinShields93465]

We haven't implemented SD-WAN, but look forward to it in the future!

[halfaroc1]

Looks pretty awesome.

Is there any isuues if SD-WAN has any flap in it internet connection?

[JustinShields93465]

We do not use SD-WAN, but may in the future

[KaminiSoneji]

Is Java still the prominently supported language for programming?