Deployment Options
Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN supports multiple deployment options for SD-WAN Control Components:
Cisco cloud hosted: This is the recommended and the most common deployment option, where Cisco builds, operates, and monitors all the SD-WAN Control Components introduced in this chapter. This greatly simplifies the deployment, allowing the network administrator to focus on the configuration and policy administration of the Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN fabric. Customers can manage their deployments through the Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN portal (https://ssp.sdwan.cisco.com), a cloud-infrastructure automation tool tailored for Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN. Using this portal, they can submit fabric provision requests, indicating the preferred cloud provider (AWS or Azure) and regions for hosting SD-WAN Control Components and data. The SD-WAN portal also offers additional functions, such as controller monitoring and fabric maintenance.
Managed service provider (MSP) or partner hosted: SD-WAN Control Components are hosted in a private or public (AWS or Azure) cloud of an MSP or partner. The provider is responsible for provisioning of the SD-WAN Control Components and backups/disaster recovery.
On premises: This option is suitable when business requirements dictate hosting SD-WAN Control Components in a traditional data center. With this approach, customers assume full responsibility for deploying, managing, and monitoring the SD-WAN Control Components. While it offers full control, customers must also manage the operations and maintenance of servers hosting these components. Another challenge is resource scaling, which is not as easy as with cloud-hosted solutions. On-premises deployment is particularly important for companies that are subject to strict regulations, such as those in the government, financial, healthcare, and utilities sectors.
Customer cloud hosted: In this mix of previous options, SD-WAN Control Components are deployed in a public cloud (AWS or Azure), but customers are fully responsible for their deployment, management, and monitoring. Compared to on-premises hosting, customer cloud deployments have a low initial setup cost, as there is no need to purchase additional data center infrastructure. This option brings in traditional cloud benefits: ease of provisioning, stability, security, and scaling.