A controller device manages a plurality of network devices arranged at a plurality of sites. The controller device includes one or more processing units configured to determine a stateful intent for managing a software application at the plurality of network devices and represented by a graph model and translate the stateful intent into low-level configuration data. The one or more processing units are further configured to determine, for each site, a priority index based on a site-level usage of the software application, determine, an ordered list of the plurality of sites based on the priority index for each respective site, and configure, for each respective site, and in an order specified by the ordered list of the plurality of sites, one or more network devices of the plurality of network devices that are arranged at the respective site according to the low-level configuration data.