The SteelCentral Controller for SteelHead (SCC) enables you to manage, configure, and monitor Riverbed products. The SCC also acts as an enterprise management and reporting tool for Riverbed products, enabling greater control for global network deployments.

This chapter assumes you have installed and performed the initial configuration of the SCC. For details, including system requirements and cross-product compatibility, see the SteelCentral Controller for SteelHead Installation Guide.

This chapter also assumes that you’re familiar with the various deployment options available to you. For details, see the SteelHead Deployment Guide and the SteelCentral Controller for SteelHead Deployment Guide.

For detailed information about SCC migration best practices, see About Best Practices.

SteelHeads must be registered with the SCC so that you can monitor and manage them with the SCC.

SteelHeads are designed to send a registration request periodically to the SCC—either to an IP address or hostname you specify when you run the SteelHead configuration wizard, or to a default SCC hostname. For autoregistration with the default hostname to work, you must configure your DNS server to map to the hostname riverbedcmc and the IP address of the SCC either as a CNAME or as an A record.

During autoregistration, the SteelHeads don’t send passwords to the SCC. Unless the password value has been modified in the Manage Appliances page, the SCC assumes that the default password is password.

After a SteelHead is registered, you can set autoconfiguration to automatically push the current configuration when the SteelHead connects.

The model 1000 SCC can manage up to 2500 appliances. The SteelCentral Controller for SteelHead (Virtual Edition) (SCC-v) configuration must be equivalent, or better, to the model 1000 to support 2500 appliances.

Adhere to these guidelines for deployments with 1500 or more appliances: