Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Onboarding Guide, Releases 26.x and Later

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Create an SD-WAN Control Component image in Azure

Updated: July 7, 2026

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Guides you through creating a control component image in Azure, including downloading and decompressing images, configuring storage accounts and containers, uploading VHD files, setting image properties, and establishing virtual networks, subnets, and security groups.

This procedure describes how to create an SD-WAN Control Component image in Azure.

Before you begin

On the Cisco Software Download page, download the images for each SD-WAN Control Component: SD-WAN Manager, SD-WAN Controller, and SD-WAN Validator. Decompress the downloaded files, which are in .tar format. The image file for each SD-WAN Control Component is in virtual hard disk (VHD) format.

Follow these steps to create an SD-WAN Control Component image in Azure.

For more information about tasks in Azure, see the Azure documentation.

Procedure

1.

If you do not already have a storage account in Azure, create one now.

  • Provide a name, location, and so on, for the storage account.

  • For network connectivity, use the default options for connectivity method, routing preference, data protection, and secure transfer.

  • Optionally, you can enter a tag to categorize the storage account.
2.

Create a new private container in the storage account. Choose a storage account in the region where you intend to deploy the SD-WAN Control Component.

Note

Each SD-WAN Control Component requires a separate container.
3.

Upload the VHD file of the SD-WAN Control Component into the container.

  1. During the upload procedure, choose Page Blob for the blob type.

    Note

    For information about choosing the blob type, see Azure documentation.
4.

Create a new image, selecting the VHD file uploaded in the previous step.

When creating an image, ensure that you complete the following actions:

  • Choose a valid subscription.

  • Choose an existing resource group or create a new one.

  • Enter a name and region for the image.

  • For OS, choose Linux.

  • For VM generation, choose Gen 1.

  • For account type, choose Premium SSD.

  • For host caching, choose read/write

  • For encryption, choose the default settings.

  • Optionally, you can enter a tag to categorize the image.

What to do next

Create a virtual network, subnets, and network security group in Azure.