Describes how Cisco SD-WAN Manager includes a pre-installed Protocol Pack for classifying network traffic by application and explains that you can upload newer Protocol Pack releases when available to keep application policies and visibility current.
A Protocol Pack is a standard set of protocols that
-
classifies network traffic according to the application producing the traffic
-
supports application-aware policy, security policy, and QoS policy to match traffic based on the application producing the traffic, and
-
provides application visibility by tracking which applications produce traffic within the network.
Protocol pack releases
Cisco SD-WAN Manager includes a pre-installed Protocol Pack, which is a standard set of protocols for classifying network traffic according to the application producing the traffic. The protocols, also called applications, can be used for application-aware policy, security policy, and QoS policy, to match traffic based on the application producing the traffic. And they are used for tracking which applications are producing traffic within the network—called application visibility.
Periodic Protocol Pack releases include updates to the application set, such as these:
-
Expanding individual applications to a set of related applications to enable more granular classification of traffic
-
New applications
-
Renamed applications
For example, a Protocol Pack release may enable classifying the traffic produced by a multimedia application, and a subsequent release could distinguish with better granularity between the audio traffic and the video traffic that the multimedia application produces.