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

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

This chapter It also assumes you’re familiar with the various deployment options. For details, see the SteelHead Deployment Guide and the SteelHead Central Controller Deployment Guide.

We recommend using the Riverbed Management Console, rather than the command-line interface, to configure most SCC features.

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

SteelHeads must be registered with the SCC to be monitored and managed.

SteelHeads automatically send registration requests to the SCC at regular intervals. They use either the IP address or hostname you specify during the SteelHead setup, or a default hostname. If you use the default hostname, your DNS server must map riverbedcmc to the SCC’s IP address, either with a CNAME or 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.

During autoregistration, SteelHeads do not send passwords. The SCC assumes the password is password unless you’ve changed it in the Manage Appliances page.

After registration, you can enable autoconfiguration to automatically push the current settings to the SteelHead when it connects.

The model 1000 SCC can manage up to 2500 appliances. The SCC virtual appliance 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: