On demand routing mesh for routing packets through SD-WAN edge forwarding nodes in an SD-WAN

A method of routing through a software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN) defined for an entity, the SD-WAN comprising (i) at least one datacenter site comprising a hub forwarding node and a plurality of server machines, and (ii) two or more multi-user compute sites each comprising one edge forwarding node to connect multiple user machines at their respective multi-user compute sites to the SD-WAN, the method comprising:

• at a first edge forwarding node located at a first multi-user compute site of the entity comprising a first set of machines:
• receiving two sets of routes to a second multi-user compute site of the entity, the first set of routes comprising a first route that traverses through a hub forwarding node at a datacenter site of the entity and the second set of routes comprising a second route that traverses through a second edge forwarding node located at a third multi-user compute site that is used as the hub forwarding node for packets from the first multi-user compute site to the second multi-user compute site when the hub forwarding node at the datacenter site has degraded performance;
• when the hub forwarding node does not have degraded performance based on a threshold value for a performance attribute of the hub forwarding node not being violated, using the first route for packet flows from the first multi-user compute site to the second multi-user compute site through the datacenter site;
• and
• when the hub forwarding node has degraded performance based on the threshold value for the performance attribute of the hub forwarding node being violated, automatically using the second route for packet flows from the first multi-user compute site to the second multi-user compute site through the third multi-user compute site.

A method of routing packets through a software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN) defined for an entity, the method comprising:

• at a first edge forwarding node located at a first multi-machine site of the entity, the first multi-machine site at a first physical location and comprising a first set of machines:
• serving as an edge forwarding node for the first set of machines by forwarding packets between the first set of machines and other machines associated with the entity via other forwarding nodes in the SD-WAN;
• in response to determining that a hub forwarding node at a datacenter is in a degraded operational state based on a threshold value for a performance attribute of the hub forwarding node being violated, receiving configuration data specifying for the first edge forwarding node to serve as the hub forwarding node for forwarding a set of packets from a second set of machines associated with the entity and operating at a second multi-machine site at a second physical location to a third set of machines associated with the entity and operating at a third multi-machine site at a third physical location;
• and
• automatically serving as the hub forwarding node to forward the set of packets from the second set of machines to the third set of machines.