New Training: Design Cisco SD-WAN

In this 9-video skill, CBT Nuggets trainer Jeff Kish walks you through the Cisco SD-WAN architecture, including the primary components of vManage, vSmart, vBond, vEdge, and cEdge. Watch this new Cisco training.

Watch the full course: Designing Cisco Enterprise Networks

This training includes:

• 9 videos

• 1 hour of training

You’ll learn these topics in this skill:

• Intro

• Control Plane Design

• Overlay Design

• LAN Design

• Redundancy and High Availability

• Securing the SD-WAN

• Multicast Traffic

• QoS in SD-WAN

• Review and Quiz

A Brief Explainer of QoS with SD-WAN

Without software-defined networking, quality of service (QoS) policies need to be implemented for each device within a MPLS network. This creates overhead as network admins need to meticulously track and configure each of these policies in various pieces of networking equipment. This can easily introduce issues within those policies, or worse, vulnerable exploits within the network.

Software-defined networks handle QoS differently, though. QoS policies can be defined at each plane which then manages those policies throughout the rest of that network. Though network admins will still need to configure QoS policies at each vEdge router, configuration and managing QoS policies is much easier.

Implementing QoS policies on a software-defined network can be built with existing MPLS networks, too. By creating a hybrid environment, the SD-WAN can route certain traffic, like voice calls, through the MPLS network while diverting other traffic through another broadband network. Though that is only one example, such strategies can reduce network load and improve efficiencies.