What is the key architectural component that allows Cisco Meraki's datacenters to be fully HIPAA...

The key architectural component that enables Cisco Meraki’s datacenters to meet HIPAA and PCI compliance standards is the out-of-band control plane. This design separates management traffic from user data. Management information (such as configurations and telemetry) is sent securely to the cloud, while all user data (such as file transfers or client traffic) remains local and does not pass through the Meraki cloud.

This architecture ensures sensitive user data is not exposed to the cloud, supporting compliance with data protection requirements found in HIPAA (for healthcare) and PCI DSS (for payment data). Therefore, the correct answer is D — out-of-band control plane.

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