What's the difference between Remote IP Access and Device Access? (SD Infrastructure, Automation Gateway)

The Software Defined Infrastructure module provides the Remote IP Access feature, the Automation Gateway module provides the Device Access feature.

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

Using Remote 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.

Using Device Access, 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.

This table provides a summary of the two features:

	Remote IP Access	Device Access
Supports Operations Manager	✓	✓
Supports Classic Console Server	✓
Layer 3 Routing	✓
Application-Level Proxying		✓
Device & Service Discovery		✓
Client Free		✓
Automation Code Friendly		✓