Unit 6

Lesson 5 - Gateways

   Introduction

As we have seen, bridges and routers can be used in networks that run more than one Data Link Layer protocol. However, they cannot interconnect nodes that use different LAN architectures. For example, TCP/IP nodes can communicate with other TCP/IP nodes, but not with AppleTalk nodes or SNA-based nodes. Devices called "gateways" provide connectivity between networks that use different architectures.

   Objectives

At the end of this lesson you will be able to:

1.

Describe what a gateway does

2.

Recognize when a gateway is necessary

3.

Explain the difference between a protocol converter and an Internet gateway


Key Point
Gateways translate traffic between two networking architectures.


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