Which statement accurately describes TLS usage in the SD-WAN control plane?

• A. TLS is used only for data-plane encryption; control plane uses no encryption.
• B. TLS is unnecessary in production deployments.
• C. The control plane tunnel to vSmart is TLS-secured and uses mutual certificates; OMP runs over this channel.
• D. TLS is used for user authentication only.

Answer: (C)

In SD-WAN, the control plane communications are protected with TLS. The tunnel from the edge device to vSmart is TLS-secured and uses mutual certificates, so both sides authenticate each other. The Overlay Management Protocol (OMP), which carries control-plane information like routing and policy updates, runs over this TLS-enabled channel. This setup ensures confidentiality, integrity, and mutual authentication for control-plane messages, not just data-plane encryption. TLS is necessary in production to securely manage control-plane operations; it isn’t used solely for user authentication.