Optional Components - Gateway

For best performance and usability, there should be a direct or routable network connection between the ServerAssist console and any installed agents, management servers and operations servers. However, in some high-security and remote networking scenarios, such a connection may require inbound connections from untrusted networks, such as the Internet, and due to security policies, such a connection may not be permitted. In these cases, the gateway provides indirect connectivity between applicable components.

The gateway is installed on a publically accessible web server, and the agent is configured to connect to the gateway. This connection is over normal or secure HTTP, and is initiated by the agent, and so does not require any inbound connections, and for most networks, does not require any additional outbound protocols to be enabled.

When the console needs to connect to the agent, it connects to the gateway, and adds a request to an internal queue maintained by the gateway. The agent polls the gateway every few seconds, and when it sees a request from the console, processes it, and uploads the result of that request to the gateway. The console then requests that response from the gateway, and processes the response in exactly the same way as if a direct network connection had been made.

Note that while the above discussion uses an agent as the remote system, it is equally possible to connect to a remote management server or operations server via a gateway.