In Cisco SD-WAN, what is the difference between a Control Policy and a Data Policy?

• A. It is a combination of both policies
• B. Control Policy governs routing and rule enforcement
• C. Data Policy governs how traffic is forwarded in the overlay (path selection, shaping, and SLA-based actions)
• D. They are the same

Answer: (C)

In Cisco SD-WAN, there are two policy planes that manage different aspects of the network: the control plane and the data plane. The Control Policy drives routing decisions and how routes are learned, filtered, and redistributed across the fabric, shaping what routing information gets propagated and how the control plane enforces rules on the network topology. The Data Policy, by contrast, governs how traffic is actually forwarded on the data plane within the overlay. It defines path selection, traffic shaping, and SLA-based actions to steer and treat traffic based on application needs and performance metrics. So the Data Policy is about how traffic moves through the overlay, including which paths are used and how QoS or SLAs are applied, while the Control Policy handles routing decisions and route enforcement.