Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Control Components and Device Management Guide, Releases 26.x and Later

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Cisco SD-AVC

Updated: June 9, 2026

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Describes the Cisco SD-AVC component operating within Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN, which provides recognition of network application traffic, and analytics at the network level.

Cisco SD-AVC is a component operating within Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN that

provides recognition of network application traffic for visibility, analytics, application-aware routing, and application-based policies, such as QoS and application-based firewall policy, and
provides analytics at the network level.

Cloud-hosted SD-AVC

From Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Control Components Release 20.10.1, some Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN environments have used a cloud-hosted SD-AVC service instead of a local service.

Benefits

Resources

Using the cloud-hosted SD-AVC service reduces the load on SD-WAN Manager host resources.
Service maintenance

Cisco can provide patches to the cloud-hosted SD-AVC service at any time, optimizing SD-AVC operation.


Environment type	Uses cloud-hosted SD-AVC	From this release	Comments
Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Cloud (formerly Cisco Cloud-delivered Catalyst SD-WAN)	Yes	Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Control Components Release 20.10.1
Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Cloud Pro (formerly Cisco Hosted Catalyst SD-WAN)	Yes	Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Control Components Release 20.10.1
On-premises installations of Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN where internet access is available, and where the Cloud Services feature is enabled	Yes	Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Control Components Release 20.18.1
Air-gapped environments without internet access	No	—	Uses a local SD-AVC service.
Environments with the Cloud Services feature not enabled	No	—	Uses a local SD-AVC service.

Restrictions for cloud-hosted SD-AVC

Describes restrictions for cloud-hosted SD-AVC.

Compliance for government installations

For compliance reasons, some government installations of Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN do not use all available cloud services, including cloud-hosted SD-AVC.

Upgrade information

This information is relevant only if you have upgraded your Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN environment from a release earlier than Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Control Components Release 20.18.1.


Upgraded from	Conditions	Result
Release earlier than Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Control Components Release 20.18.1	Cloud services and SD-AVC enabled	The upgraded environment uses the cloud-hosted SD-AVC service.
	Either Cloud Services disabled, or SD-AVC disabled	The upgraded environment uses the local SD-AVC service. After upgrading, if you enable Cloud Services (Administration > Settings > Cloud Services), the environment switches to using the cloud-hosted SD-AVC service.

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