Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN is a software-defined WAN platform that lets organisations connect and manage branches, data centres and cloud environments from a single dashboard. According to Cisco it offers AI-assisted visibility and predictive insights, automated on-ramps to cloud platforms, optimisation for multicloud and SaaS, zero-trust access with microsegmentation, support for multiple tenants and regions, and a next-generation firewall. It is deployed as an on-premises or cloud-delivered solution.
The product comes from Cisco Systems, Inc., headquartered in San Jose, California. It is a US product and is not open source. Cisco offers cloud-hosted control components, which according to its documentation run on AWS or Azure, as well as deployment on the organisation's own infrastructure. Cisco names no fixed EU region or data residency commitment, and for the cloud variant data storage depends on how the solution is deployed. When the organisation operates the platform itself, it decides where control and telemetry data are kept. For a European organisation, the US vendor remains relevant when assessing exposure to legislation such as the CLOUD Act.