What is a network gateway?
admin July 13th, 2009
In several places I have seen explanations of the term gateway, in reference to network gateways, which do not appear to explain the meaning of this term clearly.
A gateway component provides an encapsulation of other services provided within the network (ie ‘behind the gateway’, so is acts as an intermediary, imposed or required by the network. The gateway may then provide data translation or security facilities. The term ‘reverse proxy’ can be used to help explain the notion of the gateway action. [The term 'proxy' will be discussed in another seperate post.]
Also, one of the clear differences between a proxy and a gateway is that the decision as to whether a proxy will be used is made at the client end of the communication path.
