Traditionally, appliances communicated with the SCC through an SSH channel. Now, an HTTPS (on TCP port 9443) communication channel is also available. This channel is used to push and pull the new hybrid networking features supported in the SCC (for example, path selection, QoS, and secure transport).

For managed appliances, both the SSH and the HTTPS channels must be in a connected state. If either one of these channels is down, then a push from the SCC to the appliance will fail. For instance, if the HTTPS connection is down, pushing the hybrid network configuration from the SCC to appliances will fail.