Automation Gateway

Opengear allows you to set up your network using automation tools.

Automation Gateway allows Lighthouse users and automation code to discover and manage IP-based management interfaces via the Opengear management system, with the same level of simplicity and efficiency as if they were serial consoles.

Resources like firewalls and servers may present an IP-based management interface in addition to (or sometimes instead of) the traditional serial or USB console port. This interface may serve a web-based GUI, VNC or RDP based KVM, SSH-based CLI and/or a programmable network API like RESTful HTTPS. The device itself may be physical or virtual.

By their nature, the IP-based management interfaces are more dynamic (for example, they may change IP address), varied (for example, protocols vary from device to device) and harder to reach (for example, on an un-routable private network).

The Automation Gateway module addresses the challenges of discovering, auditing and connecting to IP-based management services in a distributed, heterogeneous network. It is available on Operations Manager product lines, OM120x and OM22xx.

Differences Between IP Access and Automation Gateway

The IP Access module provides the IP Access feature and the Automation Gateway module provides the Automation Gateway feature.

These two features are similar in that they both allow Lighthouse users to access network services on remote resources, however they accomplish this in different ways. One way to think about it is that IP Access transports the user to the remote network, whereas Automation Gateway transports a specific remote network service to user.

IP Access

Using IP Access, the user must establish a VPN tunnel from their computer to Lighthouse, which then provides them with a routed connection to the entire network(s) connected to the remote node. Once the tunnel is up, the user can access any network service on any network device by their standard management IP addresses.

Automation Gateway

Using the Automation Gateway feature, the user clicks through their existing Lighthouse browser session to access HTTP/HTTPS web GUI services of specific devices that have been discovered by the remote node. Access is limited to these services only, and the connections are proxied via Lighthouse's central address – so no client or network reconfiguration is required.