If this is like ANY other similar request I've worked on, ssh will not be the last package that needs to be distributed. You might want to look into
as a viable alternative to a homegrown perl script for binary/configuration synchronization across multiple hosts. Rdist even uses ssh as a transport mechanism. Rsync's claim to fame is efficiency, transporting only the differences between the src and the dest host. This may be a big gain for you with 1700 hosts. I belive the last time I checked it was able to use ssh as its transport mechanism as well.