5.1.1 Installation Architecture

Access Manager Appliance offers a simplified deployment model. The entire product is deployed as an appliance in a single‐box form factor. For more information, see Installing Access Manager Appliance in the NetIQ Access Manager Appliance 4.0 Installation Guide.

The primary purpose of Access Manager Appliance is to protect resources by allowing access only to users you have authorized. You can control access to Web (HTTP) resources as well as traditional server-based (non-HTTP) resources. As shown in the following illustration, those users who are authorized to use the protected resources are allowed access, while unauthorized users are denied access.

The following diagram illustrates how the sample portal is integrated with Access Manager Appliance.

Access Manager Appliance secures your protected Web resources from Internet hackers. The addresses of the servers that host the protected resources are hidden from both external and internal users. The only way to access the resources is by logging in to Access Manager Appliance with authorized credentials.

In the Identity Server Cluster option, the configuration assigned to the Identity Server that is the default IDP-Cluster is displayed. This establishes the trust relationship between the Access Gateway and the Identity Server that is used for authentication. In the Reverse Proxy List NAM-RP which is the default reverse proxy is listed.

You can see the IP address of the Access Gateway installed in the Access Gateways window. The health of the configured Access Gateway is Green. The published DNS name to access your sample web portal site, in this example uses namapp.com. This DNS name resolves the IP address set up as the listening address. When you edit the Reverse Proxy / Authentication, you can see that it is already configured.

5.1.2 Deployment Overview