A company is using HPE Aruba Networking Central SD-WAN Orchestrator to establish a hub-spoke VPN between branch gateways (BGWs) at 1444 site and VPNCs at multiple data centers. What is part of the configuration that admins need to complete?

In an HPE Aruba Networking Central SD-WAN hub-spoke topology with multiple data centers (DCs), the Branch Gateways (BGWs) must be configured to identify which VPN Concentrators (VPNCs) to connect to and in what order. This is accomplished within the BGW group configuration by creating a Data Center (DC) preference list. This list defines the primary, secondary, and tertiary VPNC hubs for the branches in that group, ensuring proper tunnel establishment and failover. This step is fundamental to defining the overlay network's connectivity path from the spokes to the hubs.

A. At the global level, create default IPsec policies for the SD-WAN Orchestrator to use. Aruba Central provides pre-configured default IPsec policies. Creating new ones is optional for customization, not a mandatory step to establish the basic hub-spoke topology.
C. In VPNCs' groups, establish VPN pools to control which branches connect to which VPNCs. The connection preference is defined from the branch's perspective (in the BGW group), not by creating "VPN pools" on the VPNCs to filter incoming branch connections.
D. In BGWs' and VPNCs' groups, create default IKE policies for the SD-WAN Orchestrator to use. Similar to IPsec policies, Aruba Central includes default IKE policies. Manually creating them is not a required step for the initial VPN tunnel configuration.

1. HPE Aruba Networking Central Documentation

"Configuring Hub and Spoke VPN": This official guide details the configuration workflow. It explicitly states that for Branch Gateway groups

the administrator must configure the DC preference. The procedure is outlined as: "Navigate to the Branch Gateway group configuration > VPN > DC Preference. From the Hubs table

select the VPNCs to which you want the Branch Gateways to connect. Drag and drop the VPNCs to arrange them in the order of preference." This directly supports the correct answer. (Accessed via the official Aruba Central Help Portal).

2. HPE Aruba Networking

"Aruba SD-Branch Foundation - Lab Guide"

Version 2.0

Lab 4 - SD-WAN Overlay Tunnels and Routing: This official training material guides users through the SD-WAN setup. In the section on configuring the overlay

Step 4 involves "Configure DC Preferences" where the student selects the VPNC from the Branch Group configuration context to establish the hub-spoke tunnel. This confirms the action is performed within the BGW's group settings.