How does Bridge Facilitate the Connectivity with Connectors?

The OvalEdge Bridge component allows seamless connectivity between cloud-hosted servers and on-premise or public cloud data sources without modifying firewall rules.

By installing the bridge's client component within their infrastructure, the client only needs to whitelist the IP address of the data sources and respective ports within the bridge client for secure connectivity. This enables the OvalEdge platform to handle metadata-related activities, while the Bridge Component acts as a secure VPN connection between OvalEdge and the data sources.

Bridge

The Bridge component (site-to-site communication) is used as a Tunnel to Transfer Data from the Client-Hosted Cloud or Client-on-Premises Data Center. The handshake between the Bridge Server and Client is established with a Security Tool Kit (these differ from client to client and are generated based on the IP address/DNS, etc.).

The Security Tool Kit combines the required keystrokes, trust store, and relevant configuration files to establish a secured connection between the Bridge Server and the Client.

The OvalEdge Bridge has two components.

Bridge Server: The Server in the SaaS cloud
Bridge Client: The Client is installed on a VM where client data sources are hosted (Cloud or On-Prem).

The following are the prerequisites required for installing the Bridge Software:

Recommended Hardware:

Hardware	Configurations
RAM	32 GB
SSD	250 GB
vCPU	8

Recommended Software:

Software	Versions
OS	Windows 2019/2022 or Linux (Any Flavor)
JAVA	8.0

Whitelisting Ports:

Whitelist the bridge client IP in all the required connector data sources.
Outbound Open Port (9443) for the bridge client to communicate with the bridge server.
Outbound Open Port (9443) in Windows firewall defender for the bridge client to communicate with the bridge server and access the Bridge Client UI.

The Bridge works in a Pull Model where the Bridge client will be Polling (Checks for any commands that are stored at the Bridge Server (issued from the OE Platform eg, establishing a connection to the dataSource) to execute, waiting in the queue (A queue is a Flow File that holds the data to be transmitted through Bridge) every 5 seconds.

The pull time can be configured, and the Bridge client gets the commands pulled from the Bridge Server and transmits the metadata to the OE Platform for processing securely over the secure ports that were whitelisted.

The Bridge is owned by OE apart from the client VM on which it is deployed in the client Data Center (OE provides all the software components).

OE provides and maintains the bridge component. The Bridge Server is hosted along with the OE Platform and interacts with it. Users perform actions like crawling and profiling the data sources and the Bridge Client Pools for the commands and securely execute the same connection to the client data Sources over TLS1.2(Transport Level Security) and SSL.

The Bridge Component offered as part of the SaaS reduces communication pain points with client data sources hosted on any public cloud on a VM (provided by the client) or hosted on the on-Premise sources.

The relationship of a Client’s Cloud-based sources, the bridge, and OvalEdge.

The Bridge Server is hosted on the OE SaaS AWS server.
The Bridge Client will be hosted/installed on any public cloud, where the data sources that the OE platform needs to communicate are hosted.
The Bridge Client VM must only be whitelisted in the client firewall. It establishes secured communication with the OE application through the Bridge Server hosted on the SaaS VM.

The relationship of a Client’s On-Prem sources, the bridge, and OvalEdge.

The Bridge Server will be hosted on the OE SaaS AWS server.
The Bridge Client will be hosted/installed on the On-Prem (on a VM provided by the Client), where the data sources are hosted (with which the OE platform needs to communicate).
The Bridge Client VM needs to be Whitelisted in the client Firewall, establishing secured communication with the OE application through the Bridge Server hosted on the SaaS VM.

After the prerequisites are provided, please follow the installation instructions below for Windows and Linux.

Architecture Diagram

For any support required for installing the Bridge Client, please contact the OvalEdge GCS Team.