SteelHead Mobile endpoints can accelerate SaaS traffic by working with SteelHead SaaS Manager (SSM). Through SSM, you can configure SaaS applications for acceleration, and then register SteelHead Mobile Controller with SSM to accelerate their SaaS traffic.

When you configure a SaaS application for acceleration, SSM deploys a SaaS service cluster in a public cloud to accelerate SaaS traffic. (You do not need a cloud account, and Riverbed configures and manages the SaaS service cluster.) Each SaaS application is accelerated by a dedicated service cluster. For best performance, you need to deploy the SaaS service cluster in the same region as the SaaS application servers. For details, see the SteelHead SaaS Manager User Guide.

SteelHead Mobile supports SaaS acceleration based on applications or application bundles. An application bundle enables you to set rules for a family of applications (such as Office 365) instead of configuring each application separately.

When you configure an in-path rule in a policy, you select SaaS Acceleration as the Destination Subnet and an application or application bundle for acceleration. This setting allows the client-side appliance to connect to the service endpoint of the SaaS service cluster that is deployed for the selected application.