What are typical performance metrics collected by SD-WAN monitors?

• A. Latency, jitter, packet loss, bandwidth, throughput, tunnel utilization, path quality scores, and availability metrics for each link and VPN.
• B. Only CPU and memory usage on devices.
• C. User satisfaction scores from helpdesk.
• D. Number of SMB shares mounted.

Answer: (A)

In SD-WAN monitoring, the focus is on how the network paths actually perform between sites and over the VPNs, so you can make real-time decisions about routing, QoS, and failover. Typical metrics include end-to-end latency (delay on each path), jitter (variance in delay), and packet loss, which together describe the quality of the user experience for real-time traffic. You also track available bandwidth and actual throughput to see how much capacity each link can provide and how much is being used. Tunnel utilization reveals how heavily each VPN tunnel is loaded, and path quality scores combine several of these factors to give a comparative view of which path is best at any moment. Availability metrics for each link and VPN show whether a path is up or down and meeting its SLA.

These metrics are what drive SD-WAN’s ability to steer traffic, enforce policy, and quickly react to changes in the network. While device resource metrics like CPU and memory are important for device health, they don’t directly measure the performance of the network paths themselves. User satisfaction or application-specific counts (like SMB shares mounted) are downstream indicators and not the primary performance metrics used by SD-WAN monitors to assess and optimize WAN performance.