The Steelhead Mobile Controller (SMC) manages Steelhead Mobile licenses and controls the deployment, management, and reporting of Steelhead Mobile software clients. There are two Steelhead Mobile Controller models to choose from to allow organizations of any size to take advantage of the benefits of Steelhead Mobile. The Steelhead Mobile Controller appliance (SMC) is designed for large deployments and rapidly growing organizations, while the Steelhead Mobile Controller Virtual Edition (SMC-VE) provides enterprise-grade acceleration for SMB or smaller strategic mobile deployments. Both provide the same speed, simplicity, and flexibility so that IT managers can quickly and easily deploy Steelhead Mobile to all of their remote workers and employees on the go.

The Steelhead Mobile Controller appliance is a 1U rackable standalone appliance deployed in the data center. It comes with 30 concurrent mobile licenses, supports up to 4,000 licenses, and can be clustered to scale to optimize even larger mobile deployments. The Steelhead Mobile Controller Virtual Edition is a virtual package deployed in the Riverbed Services Platform (RSP) on the Steelhead appliance. The 10 initial licenses and total capacity of 100 licenses of the Steelhead Mobile Controller Virtual Edition makes it easier to more cost-effectively target mobile users in environments where the additional scale of the Steelhead Mobile Controller appliance is unnecessary.

Fast and Easy User Deployment

The SMC uses simple MSI software packages to push out the Steelhead Mobile software client to end-user laptops and PCs. The software can be deployed in "visible" mode whereby users can see the Steelhead Mobile software running in their icon tray and can adjust a few options, or "invisible" mode, where only the administrator knows that the Steelhead Mobile software is running on the machine.

Because the SMC manages licenses on a concurrent user basis, administrators can deploy Steelhead Mobile to all end-user machines as part of their standard build. When users require a connection they automatically check with the SMC for an available license and then begin their optimized sessions.

Scalable Concurrent Licensing Model

The Steelhead Mobile product uses an easy-to-manage, scalable concurrent licensing model. Instead of buying a license for each individual end-user, IT administrators simply manage a 'pool' of licenses on a Steelhead Mobile Controller. These licenses can be used by anyone running the Steelhead Mobile software on their laptop. Then users around the organization can all take advantage of Steelhead Mobile's acceleration benefits. IT administrators get simplified and scalable management of licenses: costs are controlled by how many licenses are purchased, and new licenses can easily be added to the pool of concurrent licenses. Link-based licensing and enhanced Steelhead auto-detection make individual licenses go even further by allowing license management at the adaptor level and by releasing a license when a local Steelhead appliance can be used for optimization. This flexibility allows IT administrators the additional benefit of making Steelhead Mobile software part of the standard operating environment, including the software on every machine as they image it, without incurring additional costs.

In-depth Reporting

Similar to the Central Management Console for Steelhead appliances, the Steelhead Mobile Controller includes in-depth reporting on Steelhead Mobile client performance. Using the Steelhead Mobile Controller, IT managers can report aggregated or individual statistics on throughput improvements as well as bandwidth optimization.

(Using the SMC, IT managers can get aggregated and individual performance statistics)

Highly Scalable

The Steelhead Mobile Controller appliance and Virtual Edition and SMC-VE provide organizations of any size with the opportunity to cost effectively offer the benefits of Steelhead Mobile to their mobile workers. Steelhead Mobile Controller Virtual Edition has a total capacity of 100 licenses, while the Steelhead Mobile Controller appliance can support up to 4,000 concurrent Steelhead Mobile clients and can also be clustered to scale beyond the per individual Steelhead Mobile Controller appliance limit. Clustering also creates high availability configurations that ensure users always have accelerated mobile access to key applications and data. Regardless of which Steelhead Mobile solution you select, you will get the same industry leading speed, simplicity and scalability of the Riverbed Optimization System (RiOS).

Learn how Psomas has used Steelhead Mobile to save money and accelerate their mobile workforce