Welcome
  
Welcome
Welcome to the Riverbed Hardware Platforms Guide. This guide explains how to unbox and rack mount Riverbed’s physical hardware appliances. It also provides essential information to help you understand, maintain, and upgrade these appliances.
The guide covers only currently available products. For details on older (legacy) appliance models, refer to the documentation for the version that was current when those models were available.
About product terminology
Here’s a description of product names and related terms with their abbreviations. You’ll need to know these as you read this guide.
Term
Abbreviation
Meaning
SteelHead
SteelHead (Virtual Edition)
—
SteelHead-v
The physical or virtual appliance that, together with other appliances, provides optimization and other services.
For details, go to the product family specification sheet.
The SteelHead product family includes SteelHead, SteelHead Interceptor, Client Accelerator, and SteelCentral Controller for SteelHead. All products, except Interceptor, are available in virtual form.
SteelHead Interceptor
Interceptor
The load-balancing appliance.
Management Console
—
The graphical user interface (GUI) used to manage appliances.
command-line interface
CLI
The text-based interface to run commands used to manage appliances.
rack mounting kit
RMK
The kit that includes all the parts needed to secure the appliance to a rack. See About rack mounting kits.
Network Performance Monitoring
NPM
The Riverbed product line that provides solutions for fine-grained network monitoring.
For details, go to the product family specification sheet.
About Ethernet compatibility
Riverbed appliances support these networking standards. An appliance with a Gigabit Ethernet card supports jumbo frames on in-path and primary ports.
Ethernet standard
IEEE standard
Ethernet over Fiber 100GBASE-LR4 Single Mode
IEEE 802.3 - 2010
Ethernet over Fiber 100GBASE-SR4 Multimode
IEEE 802.3 - 2010
Ethernet over Fiber 40GBASE-SR4 Multimode
IEEE 802.3 - 2008
Ethernet over Fiber 40GBASE-LR4 Single Mode
IEEE 802.3 - 2008
Ethernet over Fiber 10GBASE-LR Single Mode
IEEE 802.3 - 2008
Ethernet over Fiber 10GBASE-SR Multimode
IEEE 802.3 - 2008
Ethernet over Copper 1000BASE-T (All copper interfaces are autosensing for speed and duplex.)
IEEE 802.3 - 2008
Ethernet over Fiber 1000BASE-LX
IEEE 802.3 - 2008
Ethernet over Fiber 1000BASE-SX (LC connector)
IEEE 802.3 - 2008
Fast Ethernet 100BASE-TX
IEEE 802.3 - 2008
Ethernet Logical Link Control (LLC)
IEEE 802.2 - 1998
 
Riverbed appliances support these connection types and standards.
Port
Speed
Primary (PRI)
10/100/1000BASE-T, 2.5GBASE-T, or 10GBASE-T
Auxiliary (AUX)
10/100/1000BASE-T, 2.5GBASE-T, or 10GBASE-T
LAN
10/100/1000BASE-T or 1000BASE-SX or 1000BASE-LX or 100GBASE-LR4 or 100GBASE-SR4 or 40GBASE-LR4 or 40GBASE-SR4, and 10GBASE-LR or 10GBASE-SR depending on configuration
WAN
10/100/1000BASE-T or 1000BASE-SX or 1000BASE-LX or 100GBASE-LR4 or 100GBASE-SR4 or 40GBASE-LR4 or 40GBASE-SR4, and 10GBASE-LR or 10GBASE-SR depending on configuration
Riverbed appliances support VLAN Tagging (IEEE 802.3 - 2008). They do not support the Inter-Switch Link (ISL) protocol.
Riverbed appliances autonegotiate speed and duplex mode for all data rates and support full-duplex mode and flow control (IEEE 802.3 – 2008).
About document conventions
This guide uses this standard set of typographical conventions:
Convention
Meaning
italics
Within text, new terms and emphasized words appear in italic typeface.
boldface
Within text, CLI commands, CLI parameters, and REST API properties appear in bold typeface.
Monospace
Code examples appear in monospace font:
amnesiac > enable
amnesiac # configure terminal
< >
Values that you specify appear in angle brackets:
interface <ip-address>
[ ]
Optional keywords or variables appear in square brackets:
ntp peer <ip-address> [version <number>]
{ }
Elements that are part of a required choice appear in braces:
{<interface-name> | ascii <string> | hex <string>}
|
The pipe symbol separates alternative, mutually exclusive elements of a choice. The pipe symbol is used in conjunction with braces or brackets; the braces or brackets group the choices and identify them as required or optional:
{delete <filename> | upload <filename>}
About documentation and release notes
You can find the most current version of all Riverbed documentation on the Support site at https://support.riverbed.com.
See the Knowledge Base for any known issues, how-to documents, system requirements, and common error messages. You can browse titles or search for keywords and strings. To access the Knowledge Base, log in to the Support site at https://support.riverbed.com.
Each software release includes release notes. The release notes list new features, known issues, and fixed problems. To obtain the most current version of the release notes, go to the Software and Documentation section of the Support site at https://support.riverbed.com.
Examine the release notes before you begin the installation and configuration process.
Contacting Riverbed
This section describes how to contact departments within Riverbed. For some products, you might need to provide your Support ID. You can find this on the Help page of your product’s Management Console.
• Technical support—Problems installing, using, or replacing Riverbed products? Contact Support or your channel partner who provides support. To contact Riverbed Support, go to https://support.riverbed.com/content/support/contact_support.html for a list of toll-free phone numbers in your area.
• Professional services—Need help with planning a migration or implementing a custom design solution? Contact Professional Services. Email proserve@riverbed.com or go to https://www.riverbed.com/services/index.html.
• Documentation—Have suggestions about Riverbed’s online documentation or printed materials? Send comments to techpubs@riverbed.com.