Introduction to Gateway

A gateway is a network point that acts as the bridge or an entrance point for the other networks.  Gateway is either a hardware or software and it joins to dissimilar networks to exchange the data between one another.  In the enterprise networks, it routes the traffic from one network to another and in the home networks, the local ISP acts as a gateway, which connect your computer to the internet. 

A router acts as a gateway, which knows where to deliver the data packets based on the source and destination IP addresses.  On the internet, when you connect to a website, a number of gateways are involved, which route your request to the destination.  In the ISPs and the enterprise networks, it controls the traffic.  In the networks, the gateway computer, which is a proxy server, should be properly secure with the antivirus solutions and the firewall because it is first computer in your network, which is directly exposed to the internet.

A proxy server without the proper security mechanism such as antivirus solutions and firewall can’t deal with the internet and external security threats.  For connecting to the internet, you need to provide the IP address of the default gateway in the local area network connection settings of your computer. A default gateway is the device that passes the traffic from one subnet to the other subnets and it often connects the local area network to the internet.  A router can also act as a default gateway, which connects your single computer or network of computers to the internet.