NI-VISA allows you to programmatically access resources on a remote workstation. NI-DAQ users should find this similar to Remote DAQ.

Many users have devices that they need to use in multiple situations, such as a group of scientists sharing an instrument in the laboratory. The most common way this is done is for each user to physically carry the device next to his PC, connect the device, and then use it. NI-VISA for Windows and Linux now supports a more efficient way to do this. With remote NI-VISA on these supported platforms, you can leave the device connected to a single workstation and access it from multiple client workstations.

Remote NI-VISA is not a separate hardware interface type, but it is included in this help file for completeness.

Using remote NI-VISA is just one way to access hardware on another machine. If you have an existing application written using VISA and you need to use it from a different client, this may be the easiest solution. However, since each VISA operation invocation is a remote procedure call, your application performance may decrease, especially if it is register-intensive or has a significant amount of programming logic based on device responses or register values. The latency over Ethernet is better suited to applications that transfer large blocks of data. A better way to remotely access hardware is to make remote calls at a higher level, such as using Remote VI Server in LabVIEW.