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

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s 26.x and Later
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How do you apply an application-aware routing policy to sites?
How does BFD monitor tunnel performance for routing decisions?
What is application-aware routing in Cisco SD-WAN?

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

How do you apply an application-aware routing policy to sites?
How does BFD monitor tunnel performance for routing decisions?
What is application-aware routing in Cisco SD-WAN?

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Policy Overview

Policy architecture
Policy validation for Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN
Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Controller Policy components
Best practice for Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Controller policy processing and application
Cisco Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Controller policy operation
Configure and execute Cisco SD-WAN Controller policies
Policy status and health monitoring

Centralized Policy

Feature history for centralized policy
Overview of centralized policies
Configure centralized policies
Centralized policies configuration examples

Localized Policies

QoS for router-generated Cisco SD-WAN Manager traffic
Localized policies
Configure policies using a configuration group
Configure localized policy for IPv4 using the CLI
Configure localized policy for IPv6 using the CLI
Localized data policy configuration examples
Configure localized policy using classic policies

Default AAR and QoS policies

Default AAR and QoS policies
Prerequisites for default AAR and QoS policies
Restrictions for default AAR and QoS policies
Supported devices for default AAR and QoS policies
Default AAR and QoS policy use cases
Configure default AAR and QoS policies using Cisco SD-WAN Manager
Monitor default AAR and QoS policies

Redirect DNS in Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Service-Side VPNs

Feature history for redirect DNS in a service-side VPN
Redirect DNS in a service-side VPN
Configure redirect DNS in a service-side VPN
Verify redirect DNS in a service-side VPN

Device Access Policy

Feature history for device access policy
Device access policies in Cisco SD-WAN Manager (concept)
ACL statistics and counters examples
ACL policy verification on an SNMP server
ACL policy verification on SSH

Application Intelligence Engine Flow

SAIE flow overview
SAIE flow configuration using Cisco SD-WAN Manager
Configure SAIE using the CLI

Application-Aware Routing

Feature history for application-aware routing
Application-aware routing
SLA
Best tunnel path
Per-class application-aware routing
Application probe classes
Default DSCP values
Configure BFD template using configuration groups
Apply policies to sites and VPNs
Activate an application-aware routing policy
Configure application-aware routing policies
Data plane tunnel performance monitoring

Enhanced Application-Aware Routing

Enhanced Application-Aware Routing in Cisco SD-WAN
Configure enhanced application-aware routing
Verify enhanced application-aware routing configuration
Monitor enhanced application-aware routing using Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Manager
Enhanced application-aware routing troubleshooting

Traffic Flow Monitoring

Feature history for traffic flow monitoring
Traffic flow monitoring
Restrictions for traffic flow monitoring
Configure traffic flow monitoring
Verify traffic flow monitoring

Application Performance Monitor

Application performance monitor
Restrictions for performance monitoring implementation
Configure application performance monitor
Performance monitoring configuration verification

Enhanced Policy Based Routing

Enhanced policy based routing
EPBR configuration
EPBR monitoring commands

Forward Error Correction

Supported devices for forward error correction
Configure forward error correction for a policy
Forward error correction status monitoring using CLI

Packet Duplication

Feature history for packet duplication
Packet duplication
Configure packet duplication
Configure underlay fragmentation using configuration groups
Restrictions for packet duplication
Monitor packet duplication statistics for a device using the CLI
Monitor packet duplication statistics for a device using Cisco SD-WAN Manager
Monitor tunnel information for a device

Policy Configuration Tagging

Feature history for policy configuration tagging
Supported devices for policy configuration tagging
Restrictions for policy configuration tagging
Policy configuration tagging
Benefits of policy configuration tagging
Configure policy configuration tagging using CLI commands
Tag-instances verification

Custom Applications

Custom applications
Configure custom applications using Cisco SD-WAN Manager
Verify custom applications

Service Insertion

Feature history for service insertion
Service insertion
Restrictions for service insertion
Use cases for service insertion
Service insertion configuration methods
Configure service chain actions in a data policy
Traffic steering to a service chain
Configure path preference
How service chains share across user VPNs
How separate interfaces for transmitted and received traffic work
Service chaining trusted and untrusted traffic
How service chains work between two routers
Fall back and restrict behavior configuration for service chain traffic
How service chain interfaces work
Service chaining with software defined cloud interconnect bring your own service

Service Insertion for Equinix

Feature history for service insertion for Equinix
Service insertion for Equinix
Requirements for service insertion for Equinix
Service insertion configuration workflow for Equinix
Configuration verification for Equinix service insertion

Service Chaining

Service chaining in Cisco SD-WAN
Configure service chaining
Monitor service chaining

Activate an application-aware routing policy

Updated: April 24, 2026

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Describes how to activate an application-aware routing policy in Cisco SD-WAN Manager.

Use this task to activate an application-aware routing policy to control how application traffic is routed across the network based on defined criteria.

Procedure

	1.	From the Cisco SD-WAN Manager menu, choose Configuration > Policies. By default, the Centralized Policy page is displayed.
	2.	For the desired policy, click ... and select Activate. The Activate Policy window opens and displays the IP addresses of the reachable Cisco SD-WAN Controllers where the policy will be applied.
	3.	Click Activate.

When you activate an application-aware routing policy, the policy is sent to all the connected Cisco SD-WAN Controllers.

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