This chapter provides an overview of the SteelFusion Edge and the Management Console. The Management Console makes managing your Edge simpler through a web browser interface. This chapter includes these sections:

This chapter assumes you have installed and configured the Edge. For details, see the SteelFusion Edge Installation and Configuration Guide.

This chapter also assumes you are familiar with the various deployment options available to you. For details, see the SteelFusion Design Guide.

SteelFusion is a converged infrastructure solution, encompassing all branch services such as server, storage, networking, and WAN optimization. SteelFusion is a dual-ended system that comprises two logical components: SteelFusion Edge and SteelFusion Core.

SteelFusion Core is a physical or virtual appliance in the data center that mounts all NFS exports that need to be made available to applications and servers at a remote location from the back-end storage array. SteelFusion Core appliances communicate across the WAN with the SteelFusion Edge appliances at the branch.

SteelFusion Edge is a physical appliance that is located at the branch. The Edge provides a high performance, virtualized environment that hosts the branch application servers. The Edge also provides network and optimization (depending on your order).

SteelFusion delivers local user performance while enabling data centralization, instant recovery, and lower total operating costs. Unlike traditional converged infrastructures, SteelFusion enables stateless branch services. You can access applications that run locally in your branch while the primary data is centralized in your data center. Decoupling computation from its underlying storage allows your applications to run in a stateless mode, which reduces your branch footprint and centralizes management of your branch services.

This diagram shows a typical SteelFusion deployment.

These terms will help you understand SteelFusion and its features:

The hypervisor uses ESXi 6.0 Patch 6 as the virtualization platform. The hypervisor is included in the Edge functionality and does not require a separate download. You set up the hypervisor through the Edge Management Console. You set up and configure virtual machines through the VMware vSphere Client or vCenter.

You can install and use the VMware vSphere Client or use the vSphere Web Client to monitor and manage a single instance of the ESXi server. You can download the vSphere applications from the VMware website, or you can download the vSphere Client from the hypervisor host.

SteelFusion Edge offers these benefits:

The Edge hardware platform contains two distinct computing nodes within a single chassis:

The two physical node design provides true hardware resource separation and isolation. The RiOS node handles traffic to and from SteelFusion Core as well as any application traffic that may be subject to WAN optimization. It also hosts an NFS fileserver. The hypervisor node hosts an instance of VMware vSphere for running one or more virtual machines. The vSphere datastore is mounted as a fileshare exported from the NFS fileserver located in the RiOS node.

You manage the hypervisor node of the Edge using VMware tools, such as the vSphere Client and vCenter.

For details on the RiOS and hypervisor nodes, see the SteelFusion Edge Installation and Configuration Guide and the SteelFusion Edge Hardware and Maintenance Guide.

This section provides information about software dependencies and compatibility. It includes these topics:

This table summarizes the software requirements for the SteelFusion Edge.

We strongly recommend that you read the SteelFusion Interoperability Matrix on the Riverbed Community site at https://community.riverbed.com/helpcenter/s/article/DOC-4204 or on the Riverbed Support site at https://support.riverbed.com.

For information on compatibility between RiOS, Edge, Core, and vSphere releases, see the Knowledge Base article RiOS, SteelFusion Edge, SteelFusion Core and vSphere Release Matrix - https://supportkb.riverbed.com/support/index?page=content&id=S:S27472.

To manage SteelFusion Edge 6.0.2 appliances, you need to use SCC 9.9.0. Earlier versions of SCC do not support 6.0.2 SteelFusion Edges. For details about SCC compatibility across versions, see the SteelCentral Controller for SteelHead Installation Guide.

Edge supports these Ethernet networking standards. A SteelHead with a Gigabit Ethernet card supports jumbo frames on in-path and primary ports.

The Edge ports support these connection types and speeds:

Edge supports VLAN Tagging (IEEE 802.3 - 2008). It does not support the ISL protocol.

Edge autonegotiates speed and duplex mode for all data rates and supports full duplex mode and flow control (IEEE 802.3 - 2008).

For details on add-on NICs, see the SteelFusion Edge Hardware and Maintenance Guide.

This product supports a proprietary Riverbed MIB accessible through SNMP. SNMPv1 (RFCs 1155, 1157, 1212, and 1215), SNMPv2c (RFCs 1901, 2578, 2579, 2580, 3416, 3417, and 3418), and SNMPv3 are supported, although some MIB items might only be accessible through SNMPv2 and SNMPv3.

SNMP support enables the product to be integrated into network management systems such as Hewlett-Packard OpenView Network Node Manager, BMC Patrol, and other SNMP-based network management tools.

This section describes how to connect to and navigate in the Management Console. If you prefer, you can use the CLI to perform configuring and monitoring tasks. For details, see the Riverbed Command-Line Interface Reference Manual.

You can also use PowerCLI to manage the VMware vSphere components. For details, see the VMware documentation.

To connect to the Management Console you must know the URL and administrator password that you assigned in the installation wizard of the SteelFusion Edge. For details, see the SteelFusion Edge Installation and Configuration Guide.

The Dashboard displays the system health status colored dot and the system hostname in the upper-left corner. Mouse over the health status dot to view the system health state: Healthy, Degraded, or Critical.

The Dashboard also displays an at-a-glance view of all the virtualization, storage, optimization and networking components. Click More in any section to see details.

You navigate to the tools and reports available to you in the Management Console using cascading menus.

As you apply page settings, the system applies the values to the running configuration. Most Management Console configuration pages include an Apply button for you to commit your changes. When you click Apply, the Management Console updates the running configuration. Your changes are only written to disk when you save your configuration.

To save your changes, click Save to Disk to save the changes to disk.

A red outline around a control indicates that the field is required. You must specify a valid entry for all of the required controls on a page before submitting the changes to the system.

The optimization service is a daemon that executes in the background, performing required operations.

Some configuration settings apply to the optimization service. When you change settings for features that depend on the optimization service, you must restart the service for the changes to take effect.

To restart the service, choose Administration > Maintenance: Services and then restart the service from the Services page. For details, see Starting and stopping the optimization service.

Click Sign out in the upper-right corner of the page to sign out of the current session.

You can print Management Console pages and reports using the print option on your web browser.

The Help page provides these options:

The Management Console provides page-level help for the appliance.

The Riverbed Support site contains PDF versions of the SteelHead User Guides and the Riverbed Command-Line Interface Reference Manual.

This table describes a basic approach to configuring the SteelFusion Edge.