Today's letter of the day in the ABC's of Networking is the letter "G".  Gzip and group based authorization come to mind when thinking about G words, but for today's word, I've picked another core component to networking: the gateway.

"G" is for Gateway

Gateway

Pronounced: Geyt-wey

In networking terms, a gateway is a node that is equipped for interfacing with another network that uses different protocols than the source network.  Gateways can operate at any layer of the OSI model.  It's job is much more complex that that of a router or switch in that it typically must convert one protocol stack to another.  A router by itself transfers, accepts, and relays packets only across networks using similar protocols.  A gateway on the other hand can accept a packet formatted for one protocol and convert it to a packet formatted for another protocol before forwarding it.