About Supported Platforms and System Requirements

The Client Accelerator solution enables you to provide LAN-like performance to remote users. For a complete description of the Client Accelerator solution, see the Client Accelerator User Guide.

This section provides information about product dependencies and compatibility. For complete product specifications, including system requirements, go to the SteelHead product family specification sheet.

The SteelHead and Client Accelerator Controller products are available in virtual form factor. Where it is necessary to distinguish the virtual from the physical form factor, “(virtual edition)” or “-v” is appended to the product name. Where this distinction is unnecessary, the standard product name is used.

Client Accelerator Controller is supported on these virtualization platforms:

• VMware ESXi—Install and configure Client Accelerator Controller-v for ESXi using the VMware Virtual Infrastructure (VI) client or the VMware vSphere Client. Virtual machine snapshots are not supported by Client Accelerator Controller-v for ESXi. For detailed information about Client Accelerator Controller-v for ESXi, see Installing the Controller on VMware ESXi.

• Microsoft Hyper-V—For detailed information, see Installing the Controller on Microsoft Hyper-V.

The client software is available for macOS and Microsoft Windows operating systems.

This section lists the required firewall settings for Client Accelerator deployments.

• Ports 80 and 443 must be open for the server-side firewall management connection to the Client Accelerator. Port 22 must be open for access to the command-line interface (CLI).

• Either port 80 or port 443 and port 7870 must be open for the connection to the Client Accelerator endpoints.

If you’re using application control, you must allow these processes:

When deploying the Client Accelerator software, make sure that the VPN tunnel is not optimized. If the VPN tunnel uses TCP for transport, when you configure a policy, you must add a pass-through rule for the VPN port number connected to the client. Depending on your deployment scenario, this rule might be the first rule in the list. If the port uses UDP, no rule is required.

For details about configuring policies, see the Client Accelerator User Guide.

VPN software products that use IPsec as the transport protocol don’t need a pass-through rule because IPsec is its own non-TCP/IP protocol and, by default, the SteelHeads don’t optimize it.

For Cisco SSL VPN AnyConnect for use on both Windows and Macintosh platforms, you must configure a fixed-target rule or configure the Cisco ASA to allow TCP options if you plan to use in-path rules. For details, go to Knowledge Base article S15292.

The Cisco ASA 5500 Series (used only on the Windows platform) requires additional configuration to be compatible with the Client Accelerator. You can either configure an in-path, fixed-target rule for the Client Accelerator policy, or you can make configuration changes on the Cisco ASA. For details about configuring in-path, fixed-target rules for acceleration policies, see the Client Accelerator User Guide. For details about configuring the Cisco ASA, go to Knowledge Base article S15292.

For a complete list of supported VPN software, go to Knowledge Base article S14999.

The Management Console has been tested with current versions of these browsers:

JavaScript and cookies must be enabled in your web browser. If you want to encrypt your communication, you must have an SSL-capable browser. No particular operating system is required.

Client Accelerator has been tested with these antivirus software products with no impact on performance.