You open a Cisco SD-WAN guide from 2020 and it tells you to log in to vManage. You open the current docs and there is no vManage anywhere, only SD-WAN Manager. Same box, new name, and nobody sends you a memo.
This post is the memo. It maps each old Viptela-era name to the current Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN name, says when the change happened, and tells you where you'll still see the old words. The reference platform for the Cisco SD-WAN series is Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN 20.18 with IOS XE 17.18.
Why the names changed
Cisco bought Viptela in 2017 and sold the product as Cisco SD-WAN. The "v" names (vManage, vSmart, vBond, vEdge) came from Viptela.
Later Cisco moved the product under its Catalyst brand. The release notes say the solution "has been rebranded as Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN," and the component names changed with it, starting in Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Release 20.12.1 and Cisco IOS XE SD-WAN Release 17.12.1a.
It's a bit like the move from "CallManager" to "Unified Communications Manager." The software kept doing the same job, and the docs, the GUI and the people who use it caught up over several years.
The name map
| Old name | Current name | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| vManage | Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Manager | The GUI and API. You configure and monitor the network here. |
| vSmart | Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Controller | The control plane. Sends routes, keys and policy to the routers over OMP. |
| vBond | Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Validator | The first contact. Authenticates new devices, tells them where the Manager and Controllers are, and helps with NAT traversal. |
| vAnalytics | Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Analytics | Optional analytics service. |
| "Controllers" (all three together) | Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Control Components | The group name for Manager, Controller and Validator. |
| vEdge / cEdge | WAN Edge router | The routers at your sites that forward traffic. |
The first five rows come straight from Cisco's release notes. The last row is how Cisco's design guide talks about the routers: it uses "WAN Edge router" for any SD-WAN router, and "vEdge" for the older Viptela hardware line.
The one that trips people up: "Controller"
In the old world, people said "the controllers" and meant all three boxes: vManage, vSmart and vBond. In the new world, "SD-WAN Controller" means only the old vSmart, and the group of three is "Control Components."
So when a 2021 blog says "deploy the controllers," it means three VMs. When a 2026 Cisco doc says "deploy the Controller," it means one role. Read the date on whatever you're following.
Where you'll still see the old names
Cisco says the switch isn't finished. The 26.1 release notes put it plainly: "While we transition to the new names, some inconsistencies might be present in the documentation set because of a phased approach to the user interface updates of the software product."
Here are places where the Cisco docs still show the old words today:
- The Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN command reference still lists commands such as
request vsmart add serial-num,show control valid-vsmartsandshow orchestrator connections. "Orchestrator" comes from the Validator's job: Cisco puts it in the orchestration plane. - The same command reference shows
show control connectionsoutput with peer typesvedge,vsmart,vbondandvmanage. - Error codes keep the old names. The command reference lists
VB_TMOas "Peer vBond Timed out". - Alarms only switched recently. Up to 26.1, SD-WAN Manager called them vManage, vBond and vSmart alarms. From Control Components Release 26.1.x they show as Manager, Validator and Controller alarms.
The alarm change is a good example of how slow this is. The product was renamed at 20.12.1, and the alarm names caught up in 26.1.
How I write the names in this series
Every post in this series uses the current names first and gives the old name once, like this: SD-WAN Manager (formerly vManage). When I paste CLI output, I leave it exactly as the router printed it, old words and all.
If you're studying from older material, keep this table open. The concepts haven't changed. OMP still works like BGP with a route reflector, a TLOC is still a next hop with a label for the transport, and the Validator is still the first thing a new router talks to.
Next steps
If you're new to SD-WAN, start with What Is SD-WAN? Why MPLS Alone Stopped Working. The full series map is on Cisco SD-WAN Explained: The Complete Guide.