Things to capture before doing maintenance on the SD-WAN fabric. The After Maintenance Window Checklist repeats every section below in the same order, so the two can be worked side by side.

📘
Take these captures immediately before the window opens, not days ahead. A snapshot from last week is not a baseline.

Preparation

Make a new folder named with the date of the outage and the change control number(s)
- Inside it, create a before folder and an after folder
Find the organization's critical application list
Have application tester(s) on hand
- Depending on the scope of the change you may be affecting one or many org apps
Identify critical hubs/headends
Identify 2-5 critical spoke locations
Schedule the users and testers below for the outage window

Identify critical apps in the organization

🚀
Following best practice rules, making Custom Applications for your organization will make this step much easier. You can easily filter for one application or application group if that is all the particular outage window is covering. Another advantage is you do not have to research the application for traffic flows, ports, protocols, IP addresses, URLs etc. This information will be in the Application engine.

Identify critical users and SME testers

What goes in the folder

Use the same filenames in the before and after folders so the compare is folder to folder. Where a filename starts with hostname, use that EdgeConnect's hostname.

Artifact	Where	Filename
Orchestrator active alarms	Alarms > Active	orch-alarms (export or screenshot)
Reachability	Monitoring > Reachability	reachability (export or screenshot)
NMS alarms and down devices	Enterprise NMS	nms-alarms, nms-down-devices
Tunnels - overlay	Configuration > Tunnels > Overlay	tunnels-report-overlay.csv
Tunnels - underlay	Configuration > Tunnels > Underlay	tunnels-report-underlay.csv
Tunnels - passthrough	Configuration > Tunnels > Passthrough	tunnels-report-passthrough.csv
Routes - Method 1 (all gateways)	Configuration > Routes	routes-report.csv
Routes - Method 2 (per gateway)	Configuration > Routes	hostname_routes_report.csv
BGP summary	Configuration > BGP > Summary	bgp-summary-report.csv
BGP peers	Configuration > BGP > Peers	bgp-peers-report.csv
OSPF state	Configuration > OSPF	ospf-report (export or screenshot)
Flows - hubs and critical spokes	Monitoring > Active & Recent Flows	hostname_flows.csv
Configuration backup	Administration > Backup Now	Held in Orchestrator, comment Before outage (change control number)
Application test evidence	Flow details, app performance stats	hostname_app_flows.csv, screenshots

Orchestrator Alarms and Reachability

Navigate to: Alarms > Active
Export or screenshot, save to before as orch-alarms
Navigate to: Monitoring > Reachability
Note any "Not connected" EdgeConnect gateways
Verify connected gateways are reachable (via both Orchestrator and Portal websockets)
Export or screenshot, save to before as reachability

Enterprise NMS Tools - State Capture

Current/active alarms
Current down/offline devices
Export or screenshot the state details
Save to before as nms-alarms and nms-down-devices
Put the affected devices into maintenance mode in the NMS so the window does not page the on-call team

Tunnel States

Note: use exports and/or screenshots

Select all gateways
Navigate to: Configuration > Tunnels
Select "Overlay", click "Export", save to before as tunnels-report-overlay
Select "Underlay", click "Export", save to before as tunnels-report-underlay
Select "Passthrough", click "Export", save to before as tunnels-report-passthrough

Edge Connect Route Snapshot

There are generally two methods to create a snapshot of the SD-WAN route table via the Orchestrator UI:

Method #1 - Global report including all gateways (single CSV file)

Select all gateways in the navigation tree
Navigate to Configuration > Routes
Ensure "All" is selected and all filters are cleared
Choose "Export"
Save to before as routes-report.csv

Method #2 - Single report for each gateway (multiple CSVs)

Select one gateway in the navigation tree
Navigate to Configuration > Routes
Ensure "All" is selected and all filters are cleared
Choose "Export"
Save to before as hostname_routes_report.csv
Repeat for each gateway in the SD-WAN fabric

Method #1 is easier to complete, but is more work to diagnose a problem if there is a change in route table data.

Method #2 is more tedious, but provides an easier way to diagnose a route table change.

❗️
Whichever method you choose, use the same one after the window. The two exports must be like for like.

BGP and OSPF State Snapshot

Select all gateways in the navigation tree
Navigate to Configuration > BGP
Choose "Summary" and click "Export", save to before as bgp-summary-report.csv
Choose "Peers" and click "Export", save to before as bgp-peers-report.csv
Navigate to Configuration > OSPF
Export or screenshot the neighbor state, save to before as ospf-report

Flow Table Snapshot (Hubs and Critical Spokes)

Select a hub gateway
Navigate to Monitoring > Active & Recent Flows
Ensure all filters are cleared and the search box is empty
Click Export
Save to before as hostname_flows.csv
Repeat for each hub gateway
Repeat for each critical spoke gateway identified in Preparation

Active flow analysis

With no flow filter applied and Bytes set to "Total"
- Sort the flow table by bytes IN - note the number of flows with 0 bytes
- Sort the flow table by bytes OUT - note the number of flows with 0 bytes

Configuration Backup

Select all appliances
Navigate to: Administration > Backup Now
Add comment "Before outage (change control number)"
Click Backup

Test Applications for Function

Test all used applications for voice/video, or at least those "critical" to the organization. This is the baseline the testers will compare against after the window.

💻
Teams, Zoom, Google, VoIP phones, etc.