Which Cisco SD-WAN feature provides application-level visibility to enforce SLA-based routing decisions?

• A. Centralized data policy
• B. VPN segmentation
• C. DPI-based application awareness
• D. Device templates

Answer: (C)

The ability to see exactly what application a flow belongs to is what enables SLA-based routing decisions. DPI-based application awareness uses deep packet inspection to classify traffic by application (for example, video conferencing, cloud apps, or file transfer). Once the SD-WAN fabric can identify the application, it can apply policies that route each app’s traffic over the best available path according to performance metrics like latency, jitter, and loss, or other SLA requirements. Real-time or latency-sensitive apps can be steered to higher-quality links, while bulk or tolerant traffic can use cheaper paths, ensuring each application gets the level of performance it needs.

Other options don’t provide this level of application visibility or SLA-driven routing. Centralized data policy governs data access controls, VPN segmentation deals with security and isolation, and device templates focus on provisioning and configuration, not on recognizing applications to drive path selection.