IBM Cloud Docs
Satellite Connector and Secure Gateway

Satellite Connector and Secure Gateway

Satellite Connector replaces Secure Gateway to provide connection between IBM Cloud and your on-prem data center.

Terminology mapping

See the following table to compare terminology between Secure Gateway and Satellite Connector.

Secure Gateway and Satellite Connector terminology.
Secure Gateway Satellite Connector Notes
Secure Gateways Satellite Connector and Agents Automatically created when you create a Satellite Connector.
Secure Gateway Client Satellite Connector Agent Satellite Connector is a containerized solution.
Secure Gateway Destination Satellite Connector Endpoint They are the same thing.
Secure Gateway API Satellite Connector API The constructs are similar.
Secure Gateway Endpoint Satellite Connector API Endpoint This term in Secure gateway refers to the API endpoint.
Secure Gateway Dashboard Satellite Connector Endpoints page in cloud.ibm.com

Capabilities

Satellite Connector offers a lot of the same capabilities as Secure Gateway and some additional features which provide a more seamless integration into IBM Cloud.

The following table highlights how capabilities are provided in Secure Gateway and Satellite Connector.

Secure Gateway and Satellite Connector key differences.
Topic Secure Gateway Satellite Connector Notes
Public internet access Cloud side of a destination is exposed on a public IP address. Cloud side of an endpoint is exposed only to the IBM Cloud private endpoint network so that it's reachable only from within IBM Cloud. Satellite Connector Access Control List sets the access.
Integrations N/A Integrated when you connect your Satellite Connector Agent location to Activity Tracker, LogDNA, and Sysdig. The agent itself runs on a container platform that isn’t integrated into the IBM Cloud tools. For example, Docker won’t send logs to logDNA.
Client access Secure Gateway Client supports Windows, Linux, Mac, Node.js module, and container. Satellite Connector supports container.
Clients per instance Limited to 4 client connections for high availability For high availability support, use 3 clients. Up to 9 clients allowed to scale containers over time.
Client requirements See Requirements to run the Client.
  • Host type: Most container hosts can run the client container image, including the Docker Community Edition.
  • Ports: Only requires port 443 to be opened.
Encryption (TLS support) TLS version supported is 1.2. Protocols supported are UDP, TCP, HTTP, and HTTPS. TCP, TLS (version 1.3), HTTP, HTTPS, and HTTP Tunnel. No UDP support.
Authentication Mutual authentication is supported. Provided by the target and can be configured with mutual authentication on the Satellite Connector parts.
Load balancing and high availability Can connect multiple instances of the Secure Gateway Service client to your gateway to automatically use built-in connection load balancing and connection fail-over if a client instance goes down. Can connect multiple Connector agents to your connector instance in Cloud to automatically use built-in load balancing and connection failover if an container goes down.