Unified Access Gateway is a VMware hardened Linux based virtual security appliance designed to protect remote user access to end-user computing resources such as virtual desktops and applications. It is designed to operate with the following VMware solutions:

  • Desktop and App Virtualization with Horizon 7/8 and Horizon Cloud
  • Workspace ONE Access
  • Workspace ONE UEM
    • Per-App Tunnel
    • Content Gateway
    • Secure Email Gateway

A virtual appliance is a pre-configured software solution that makes it possible to combine the hardened Linux configuration with the application gateway and the security software so that it can be managed as a singe appliance. Unified Access Gateway is delivered as a single image file that is pre-hardened and tested overall by VMware. All configuration settings can be pushed during deployment so that Unified Access Gateway is "production-ready on first boot" and using automated deployment, and take less than 2 minutes. There is no need to separately configure or harden the appliance after it is deployed. This functionality eliminates the need to separately manage the operating system and install application packages. It also means that there are no incompatibility issues that might be encountered by combining different application code versions with different operating system components and Java versions. Overall, all components of a released appliance image are tested by VMware prior to release.

There is a full version of Unified Access Gateway and a limited FIPS version. Deployment of Unified Access Gateway is supported on:

  • vSphere (ESXi and vCenter)
    Note: vCenter is mandatory for ESXi deployment.
  • Amazon AWS EC2 (Xen and KVM)
  • Microsoft Azure
  • Hyper-V (for Workspace ONE UEM only)
  • Google Compute Engine (GCE in Google Cloud).

The same Unified Access Gateway appliance (standard or FIPS version) is used for all solutions, hypervisors, and VMware Cloud services such as Horizon Cloud.

Virtual Appliance Operating System

Consistent with many other modern VMware virtual appliances, Unified Access Gateway uses the Photon operating system. Photon OS, is an open-source minimalist Linux operating system from VMware. The latest Unified Access Gateway versions use Photon 3.0.

Console access is supported to allow an administrator to log on as the root user. This is available through the virtualisation platform such as vCenter Console link and access can be restricted through a comprehensive Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) facility on vCenter to ensure only authorized administrators can gain access. SSH access to Unified Access Gateway is normally deactivated but can be activated using a password or the SSH key controls.