Steelhead Appliance Installation and Configuration Guide
23
CHAPTER 3
Installing and Configuring the
Steelhead Appliance
This chapter describes how to install and configure the Steelhead appliance. It includes the following
sections:
“Choosing a Network Deployment” on page 23
“Checking Your Inventory” on page 25
“Preparing Your Site for Installation” on page 26
“Completing the Configuration Checklist” on page 27
“Powering On the Steelhead Appliance” on page 29
“Connecting to the Steelhead Appliance” on page 30
“Configuring In-Path Steelhead Appliances” on page 31
“Configuring Out-of-Path Steelhead Appliances” on page 40
Important:
Read and follow the safety guidelines described in the
Safety and Compliance Guide
. Failure to follow these
safety guidelines can result in damage to the equipment.
Choosing a Network Deployment
Typically, the Steelhead appliance is deployed on a LAN, with communication between appliances taking
place over a private WAN or VPN. Because optimization between Steelhead appliances usually takes place
over a secure WAN, it is not necessary to configure company firewalls to support Steelhead-specific ports.
Note:
If there are one or more firewalls between two Steelhead appliances, ports 7800 and 7810 must be passed through
firewall devices located between the pair of Steelhead appliances. Also, SYN and SYN/ACK packets with the TCP
option 76 must be passed through firewalls for auto-discovery to function properly.
For optimal performance, minimize latency between Steelhead appliances and their respective clients and
servers. Position Steelhead appliances as close as possible to your network end points (client-side Steelhead
appliances should be as close to your clients as possible and server-side Steelhead appliances should be as
close to your servers as possible).
