Cisco Security Cloud Control: Network Devices with Generic SSH Access Management

Overview of Security Cloud Control Firewall Management

Updated: July 11, 2026

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An overview of Security Cloud Control Firewall Management for managing firewall devices, policies, objects, and configuration consistency.

Security Cloud Control Firewall Management (formerly Cisco Defense Orchestrator or CDO) is a cloud-based security policy manager that helps simplify and unify security policies across your Cisco firewalls and other devices such as Cisco IOS and SSH. The firewalls and devices can be managed from Firewall, which is listed under Products in the Security Cloud Control dashboard.

Security Cloud Control Firewall Management helps you optimize your security policies by identifying inconsistencies within them and by providing with the tools to fix them. It provides you with ways to share objects and policies, as well as create configuration templates, to promote policy consistency across devices.

Because Security Cloud Control Firewall Management coexists with Adaptive Security Device Manager (ASDM), it keeps track of configuration changes made by ASDM and reconciles the differences.

You can manage a wide range of devices in one place. Advanced users will also find their traditional CLI interface with some new enhancements to make management even more efficient for them.

Security Cloud Control Firewall Management also provides a guided "Day 0" experience, helping you to quickly onboard Threat Defense devices to your on-premises or Cloud-Delivered Firewall Management Center. It also presents you with other key features that you may benefit from and helps you enable and configure them.

Device onboarding requirements

Before you onboard a device, complete these prerequisites:

Complete the installation wizard.
License the device.

After you complete those prerequisites, use the Security Cloud Control Firewall Management onboarding wizard to onboard the device.

Keep these restrictions in mind:

After you onboard devices to a Security Cloud Control Firewall Management associated with an organization, you cannot migrate those devices to another organization.
To move devices to a new organization, you must re-onboard them to the new organization.

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Security Cloud Control Firewall Management Platform Maintenance Schedule

Security Cloud Control Firewall Management updates its platform every week with new features and quality improvements. Updates are made during a 3-hour period according to this schedule:


Day of the week	Time of day (24-hour time, UTC)
Thursday	09:00 UTC - 12:00 UTC

During the Security Cloud Control Firewall Management upgrade period, you can still access your organization and the Cloud-Delivered Firewall Management Center. Additionally, the devices that you have onboarded to Security Cloud Control Firewall Management continue to enforce their security policies.

Note

During the maintenance period of the Security Cloud Control Firewall Management, refrain from creating or deploying configurations to the devices it manages.

If there is any issue that stops Security Cloud Control Firewall Management from communicating, Cisco addresses that issue in all the affected tenants as quickly as possible, even if it is outside the maintenance window.

Security Cloud Control Firewall Management licenses

Security Cloud Control Firewall Management requires a base subscription for organization entitlement and device licenses for managing devices. You can buy one or more Security Cloud Control Firewall Management base subscriptions based on the number of tenants you require and device licenses based on the device model number and the quantity. In other words, purchasing the base subscription provides you with a Security Cloud Control Firewall Management organization. For every device you choose to manage using Security Cloud Control Firewall Management, you need separate device licenses.

For the purposes of planning your deployment, note that each Security Cloud Control Firewall Management tenant can manage approximately 500 devices through the Secure Device Connector (SDC) and any number of devices using the cloud connector. See Secure Device Connector (SDC) for more information.

To onboard and manage devices from Security Cloud Control Firewall Management, you must purchase a base subscription and device-specific, term-based subscriptions based on the devices you want to manage.

Subscriptions

Security Cloud Control Firewall Management subscriptions are term-based:

Base: Offers subscriptions for one, three, and five years, and provides entitlement to access the Security Cloud Control Firewall Management organization and onboard adequately licensed devices.
Device License: Offers subscriptions for one, three, and five years for any supported device you choose to manage. For example, you can choose to manage a Cisco Firepower 1010 device using Security Cloud Control Firewall Management for three years if you purchase a three-year software subscription for the Cisco Firepower 1010 device.

See Software and Hardware Supported by Security Cloud Control Firewall Management for more information on Cisco security devices that Security Cloud Control Firewall Management supports.

You do not require two separate device licenses to manage a high-availability device pair in Security Cloud Control Firewall Management. If you have a high-availability pair, purchasing one device license is sufficient because Security Cloud Control Firewall Management considers the pair of high-availability devices as one single device.

Note

Catalyst SD-WAN does not require an additional license for integration with Security Cloud Control Firewall Management. Customers with Cisco Digital Network Architecture (DNA) or WAN Essentials licenses can use these existing licenses for integration without needing any other license.

Note

You cannot manage Security Cloud Control Firewall Management licensing through the Cisco Smart Licensing portal.

Software Subscription Support

The Security Cloud Control Firewall Management base subscription includes software subscription support that is valid for the term of the subscription and provides access to software updates, major upgrades, and Cisco Technical Assistance Center (TAC) at no extra cost. While software support is selected by default, you can also leverage Security Cloud Control Firewall Management solution support based on your requirement.

More Supported Devices and Licenses

In addition to supporting Secure Firewall Threat Defense devices through the Cloud-Delivered Firewall Management Center, Security Cloud Control also manages these devices:

Cisco Secure Firewall ASA
On-premises Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center
Cisco Meraki Security Appliance
Cisco IOS devices
Devices accessible using SSH
Amazon Web Services (AWS) virtual private cloud (VPC)
Umbrella Organization

You will need a Security Cloud Control base entitlement license and a license specific to the device you want to manage.

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