Configure an SD-WAN Policy Rule
Table of Contents
Configure an SD-WAN Policy Rule
Configure an SD-WAN policy rule to determine how the
firewall selects a path for session load and for when the health
of the preferred path deteriorates.
An SD-WAN policy rule specifies application(s)
and/or service(s) and a traffic distribution profile to determine
how the firewall selects the preferred path for an incoming packet
that doesn’t belong to an existing session and that matches all
other criteria, such as source and destination zones, source and
destination IP addresses, and source user. The SD-WAN policy rule
also specifies a path quality profile of thresholds for latency,
jitter, and packet loss. When one of the thresholds is exceeded,
the firewall selects a new path for the application(s) and/or service(s).
When monitoring your SD-WAN
traffic, traffic originating from a source behind the hub device
is evaluated against the SD-WAN policies pushed to the hub device
as it enters the hub device, and because the path selection decision
has already been made, the branch device does not evaluate the traffic
against its SD-WAN policies as it passes through the branch device
to the final target device. Conversely, traffic originating from
a source behind the branch device is evaluated against the SD-WAN
policies pushed to the branch device and not by hub device. The Panorama™
management server aggregates the logs from both the hub and branch,
and for the same traffic, two session entries are displayed but
only the SD-WAN device that originally evaluated the traffic contains
the SD-WAN details.
In an SD-WAN policy rule, you also specify
the devices to which you want Panorama to push the rule.
- Log in to the Panorama Web Interface.Select and select the appropriate device group from the Device Group context drop-down.Add an SD-WAN policy rule.On the General tab, enter a descriptive Name for the rule.On the Source tab, configure the source parameters of the policy rule.
- Add the Source Zone or select Any source zoneAdd one or more source addresses, set an external dynamic list (EDL), or select Any Source Address.Add one or more source users or select any Source User.On the Destination tab, configure the destination parameters of the policy rule.
- Add the Destination Zone or select Any destination zone.Add one or more destination addresses, set an EDL, or select Any Destination Address.On the Application/Service tab, select a Path Quality profile or Create a Path Quality Profile.Add Applications and select one or more applications from the list or select Any applications. All applications you select are subject to the health thresholds specified in the Path Quality profile you selected. If a packet matches one of these applications and that application exceeds one of the health thresholds in the Path Quality profile (and the packet matches the remaining rule criteria), the firewall selects a new preferred path.Add only business-critical applications and applications that are sensitive to path conditions for their usability.Add Services and select one or more services from the list or select Any services. All services you select are subject to the health thresholds specified in the Path Quality profile you selected. If a packet matches one of these services and that service exceeds one of the health thresholds in the Path Quality profile (and the packet matches the remaining rule criteria), the firewall selects a new preferred path.Add only business-critical services and services that are sensitive to path conditions for their usability.
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On the Path Selection tab, select a Traffic Distribution profile or Create a Traffic Distribution Profile. When an incoming packet (unassociated with a session) matches all the match criteria in the rule, the firewall uses this Traffic Distribution profile to select a new preferred path.![]()
On the Target tab, use one of the following methods to specify the target firewalls in the device group to which Panorama pushes the SD-WAN policy rule:- Select Any (target to all devices) (the default) to push the rule to all devices. Alternatively, select Devices or Tags to specify the devices to which Panorama pushes the SD-WAN policy rule.
- On the Devices tab, select one or more
filters to restrict the selections that appear in the Name field;
then select one or more devices to which Panorama pushes the rule,
as in this example:
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- On the Tags tab, Add one
or more Tags and select the tag(s) to specify that
Panorama push the rule to devices that are tagged with the selected
tags, as in this example:
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- If you specified Devices or Tags, you can select Target to all but these specified devices and tags to have Panorama push the SD-WAN policy rule to all devices except for the specified devices or tagged devices.
Click OK.Commit and Commit and Push your configuration changes.(Best Practice) Create a catch-all SD-WAN policy rule to Distribute Unmatched Sessions so that you can control which links any unmatched sessions use and view unmatched sessions in logging and reports in the SD-WAN plugin.If you don’t create a catch-all rule to distribute unmatched sessions, the firewall distributes them in round-robin order among all available links because there is no traffic distribution profile for unmatched sessions. Round-robin distribution of unmatched sessions can increase your costs unexpectedly and result in loss of application visibility.After configuring your SD-WAN policy rules, Create a Security Policy Rule to allow traffic (for example, bgp as an Application) from branches to the internet, from branches to hubs, and from hubs to branches.(Optional) Configure QoS for critical applications.If the SD-WAN applications need guaranteed bandwidth capacities or if you do not want other applications taking bandwidth from critical business applications, create QoS rules to control the bandwidth properly.To automatically set up BGP routing between VPN cluster members, in the SD-WAN plugin, Configure BGP routing between branches and hubs to dynamically route traffic that will be subject to the SD-WAN failover and load sharing.Alternatively, if you want to manually configure BGP routing on each firewall or use a separate Panorama template to configure BGP routing (for more control), leave the BGP information in the plugin blank. Instead, configure BGP routing.Configure NAT for public-facing virtual SD-WAN interfaces.
