This is an original planning guide. It is not a vendor manual, an official standard, or legal advice. Example addresses use documentation ranges. Review every command before you paste it.
What this hour is for
SD-WAN selects a path across transports you already have. The planner drafts a path from sites and links you type. It does not configure an appliance.
Write the underlay: which internet or which private circuit. Write the overlay address only if you have a real plan for it. A diagram with three clouds and no circuit id is not a design.
Steering every application on day one is how voice lands on a dirty path. One lab site, one transport, no production steering.
The comparison with MPLS is the other page. This page is the vocabulary and one site.
The change you can finish
Apply nothing during the writing of the note. When the lab window opens, it is one change on the device named in the ticket. Read the draft, then the device, then decide.
Rollback is the file or the revision you saved first. You do not invent a rollback after the only copy is gone.
- Name one site.
- Name the underlay.
- Say what the overlay is for.
- Leave application steering off.
- Do not move production.
- Stop.
Mistakes that outlive the command
SD-WAN Explained goes wrong in a small set of ways. The list is here so the ticket can forbid them before the window.
- Production steered on day one.
- An underlay you do not operate.
- No circuit named.
- Three products enabled to compare live.
- A default route changed as part of the drawing.
Decisions to write down
One decision for SD-WAN Explained: One site is named. The underlay is named. Steering is off. Production is unmoved. And the drawing has a circuit or a link you operate.
Checks before you call it done
Confirm this before you call the change done: Site and underlay are in the ticket. No application policy is active. No production route changed. The MPLS comparison is separate. And a second person can point at the underlay. If one of those fails, stop.
One site. Name the underlay.
Do not steer production traffic.Before you leave the device
SD-WAN Explained ends when the hostname on the device matches the hostname in the ticket. If it does not, you are on the wrong box. Stop. A command that succeeded on the wrong box is not progress.
The draft stays a draft until a person has read the names in it. A generator does not log into the device and does not know which interface is the uplink. You delete a line that names a device, a zone, or a prefix you did not write down.
0.0.0.0/0 is not kept because a sample included it. A source you can say is the source you keep. 192.0.2.0/24, 198.51.100.0/24, 203.0.113.0/24, and 2001:db8::/32 are documentation. They belong in the note. They are not prefixes you type onto a production device because they appeared in a draft.
prompt-for-this is a reminder that a secret is missing. It is not a password, a key, a community string, or a pre-shared key you save in the ticket or in git. The real secret stays in the store.
One change is the window. A VLAN and a routing protocol and a VPN do not share it. If two things move and the result is wrong, you will not know which one did it. The next feature waits for its own page.
If the same step fails twice, stop for the day. The failure is the result. Adding a forum command beside a half-applied config produces a device nobody can rebuild. Restore the copy you took first.
A second person reads the device name and the change aloud. If they cannot find them in the ticket, the note is not done. Silence is not agreement. Then leave the device alone.
This page is a planning guide. It is not a vendor manual, not an official standard, and not a permission to touch a network you do not administer. The pillar guide owns the wider design. This page owns one lab proof.
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