How does Automation Gateway work?

Overview

Once a node is activated with the Automation Gateway module, the node scans all directly connected network segments for management services (e.g. HTTPS web GUI or REST API running on a device such as a firewall appliance or an iDRAC running on your Dell Server). These discovered management services are published on Lighthouse via its API and web GUI.

When a Lighthouse user or automation code needs to access the remote device, Lighthouse proxies the connection via its local IP address, through to the remote device IP.

More simply put, when a user needs to access the web UI of a firewall on a remote, unreachable network, they browse to Lighthouse, search for the firewall, click a link, and the web UI is displayed.

 

Delete Entries

When Automation Gateway does its automated (or manual) scan, it will populate an entry list of devices with supported protocols to connect to. This function will give the user the ability to delete entries. You can Delete an entry by clicking the “More device actions” menu on the far right (the three vertical dots) and then clicking Delete. Note: This is only a temporary delete and once either automated or manual scan runs again, it will return unless the device is disconnected from the network.

Rename Entries

Similar to above, once a scan has been completed, this function will give the user the ability to rename the populated entry list. This will persist beyond future scans as long as the entry remains on the network. By default the device name is just the hostname or IP address of the discovered device. You can rename it by clicking the “More device actions” menu on the far right (the three vertical dots) and then clicking “Rename device”.

Manual Scan

Automation Gateway scans the devices downstream to the Opengear nodes, this is routinely done approximately every 10 minutes. The addition of manual scans gives you the ability to start/restart the scan once a change has been made to your network.
Note: This will stop any current scan and start it again from scratch. This can be a lengthy process.

Note

• There can only be one concurrent remote session per Automation Gateway OM node for RDP & VNC access.

  • Limit session guard rails have been implemented to prevent the user from opening more than one session at a time, with a prompt to query the user if they wish to take over the existing session if one is already running.

  • This limitation has been implemented to conserve the performance on the OM devices.