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Callisto Help > Setup and user administration > Choosing the Local or Central Controller

Choosing the Local or Central Controller

We strongly recommend the Central Controller for live environments. The User Controller is useful for trial scenarios but unless you are unable to provide an SSL certificate for the Central Controller it is the Central Controller you should select. Callisto warranty services require the Central Controller.

Callisto as a Service renders dashboards of your Configuration Manager data by utilising a hybrid combination of a cloud-hosted website solution combined with an on-premise data broker which we call the Callisto Controller.

The Callisto Controller is a small application which runs on-premise to query your Configuration Manager database when requested by the cloud solution. This approach allows us to maintain, update and enhance the portal experience for you and your users in our cloud datacentre without you needing to update in your environment, and also ensures your data all remains in your datacentre. The Callisto cloud solution never sees your data, the local Callisto Controller queries this from your local SQL database in realtime when requested by the dashboard portal and presents it to the requesting user in their browser.

As of the May 2021 release of Callisto as a Service we have two options for how you can run the Callisto Controller. The original approach is to have the Callisto Controller run as a desktop application for all users who need to access Callisto. The Controller application runs in the system tray under the user's context, all queries against the Configuration Manager database use this account, so all Callisto users must have SQL datareader rights.

The second option is to use the Callisto Central Controller. This is a Service we install on a server in the environment, most commonly the Configuration Manager Primary Site Server, this Central Controller performs the same function as the user controller, but only a single instance is required and it runs in the site server's system context by default, so requires no additional SQL permissions configuration. The Central Controller requires an SSL certificate to be provide at install time.

The controller selection is set at the tenant level, so only one configuration is possible in your tenant. You will choose the configuration in the Welcome Screen on first use, you can change it later.

If you are going to use the Central Controller click here for more instructions.

If you are going to use the User Controller on each user's desktop click Callisto User Controller for more details.