Router

A device that determines where to send a data packet between at least two networks. Its decision is based on its current understanding of the networks. A router maintains a table of the available routes and their conditions. It uses this table together with distance and cost algorithms to determine the best route for a given data packet. Data packets often travel through a number of networks and routers before arriving at their destination.

Switch
A device that directs data packets along a path. It may include the function of a router. In general, a switch is a simpler and faster mechanism than a router as it does not maintain knowledge of the networks. A switch is not always required in a network. Many LANs are organized so that the nodes inspect each data packet.

Hub
A hub is a central connecting device in a network. Data arrives at the hub from one or more devices and is forwarded out using just one cable. For example, four cables from three computers and a printer are connected to a hub and then a single cable connects the hub to a server. A hub can also include a router. Most hubs were originally passive. The data simply passed through the hub without any change.

Gateway
A combination of hardware and software to link two different types of networks. This usually involves converting different protocols. For example, a gateway could be used to convert a TCP/IP packet to a NetWare IPX packet.

Gateways are network points that acts as an entrance to another network. On the Internet, a node or stopping point can be either a gateway node or a host (endpoint) node. Both the computers of Internet users and the computers that serve pages to users are host nodes. The computers that control traffic within your company's network or at your local Internet service provider (ISP) are gateway nodes.

Bridge
A combination of hardware and software to link two similar networks. It often connects LANs that use the same protocol, such as Ethernet. A bridge examines each data packet on a LAN and forwards any data packets addressed to a connected LAN. Bridges are faster than routers because they connect networks that are using the same protocol.

What is the difference between a hub, switch and router? You can think of a hub like a house with 4 rooms, 4 people, and 4 phones but only one phone number. Each person has the phone to his ear, and they can converse with each other, but if one person speaks, everyone can hear it regardless if the statement was intended for them or not. So, if person 4 wanted to send a message to person 3, he would have to tell everyone to be quiet, say "this message is for person 3" and then say the message.

Imagine the same situation except that each room has its own telephone number. This situation describes a switch. If person 4 wanted to send a message to person 3, he could call directly to that room without disturbing the people in rooms 1 or 2. That means that at the same time 3 and 4 are talking, room 1 and 2 could have a conversation without disrupting any other conversations.

Thus, the difference between a switch and a hub is that a switch can handle multiple communications between the computers attached to it whereas a hub handle one at a time. If there are only two computers transmitting data across a network, a hub would perform identically to a switch. However, if more than two computers were trying to transmit across the network at the same time, the switch would perform far better. Whereas a hub and switch serve the same function, a router serves a slightly different function. A router is explicitly designed to connect two networks together, usually a Local Area Network, or LAN (like a single small office) to a Wide Area Network, or WAN (like the Internet). A router also has additional "smart" software with security features that disallow unauthorized access to the computers in the LAN from the outside.

Difference between router and gateway

In simpler terms a router is like a elevator in the building. It can take you to any floor [distination] and back again [source]. This would work with any routable protocol [tcp/ip, ipx, decnet..] Your first door to the elevator is your gateway. This is all your pc needs to know since the router will take it from there and make sure it gets to where you want and back again. You can access the World by going thru that first door [gateway] 1.gateway is nothing but the final point or computer that the data crosses finally in a network. That is all the data that is transfered should pass through this gateway. Router is nothing but which routes the data from one network to the other network.

2. 3. 4. Difference between Hub, switch and router 5. In a word: intelligence. 6. Hubs, switches, and routers are all devices that let you connect one or more computers to other computers, networked devices, or to other networks. Each has two or more connectors called ports into which you plug in the cables to make the connection. Varying degrees of magic happen inside the device, and therein lies the difference. I often see the terms misused so let's clarify what each one really means. 7. 8. A hub is typically the least expensive, least intelligent, and least complicated of the three. Its job is very simple: anything that comes in one port is sent out to the others. That's it. Every computer connected to the hub "sees" everything that every other computer on the hub sees. The hub itself is blissfully ignorant of the data being transmitted. For years, simple hubs have been quick and easy ways to connect computers in small networks. 9. A switch does essentially what a hub does but more efficiently. By paying attention to the traffic that comes across it, it can "learn" where particular addresses are. For example, if it sees traffic from machine A coming in on port 2, it now knows that machine A is connected to that port and that traffic to machine A needs to only be sent to that port and not any of the others. The net result of using a switch over a hub is that most of the network traffic only goes where it needs to rather than to every port. On busy networks this can make the network significantly faster. 10. "Varying degrees of magic happen inside the device, and therein lies the difference." 11. A router is the smartest and most complicated of the bunch. Routers come in all shapes and sizes from the small four-port broadband routers that are very popular right now to the large industrial strength devices that drive the internet itself. A simple way to think of a router is as a computer that can be programmed to understand, possibly manipulate, and route the data its being asked to handle. For example, broadband routers include the ability to "hide" computers behind a type of firewall which involves slightly modifying the packets of network traffic

as they traverse the device. All routers include some kind of user interface for configuring how the router will treat traffic. The really large routers include the equivalent of a full-blown programming language to describe how they should operate as well as the ability to communicate with other routers to describe or determine the best way to get network traffic from point A to point B. 12. A quick note on one other thing that you'll often see mentioned with these devices and that's network speed. Most devices now are capable of both 10mps (10 megabits, or million bits, per second) as well as 100mbs and will automatically detect the speed. If the device is labeled with only one speed then it will only be able to communicate with devices that also support that speed. 1000mbs or "gigabit" devices are starting to slowly become more common as well. Similarly many devices now also include 802.11b or 802.11g wireless transmitters that simply act like additional ports to the device. 13. 14. 15. What is the difference between a bridge and a gateway? 16. A bridge joins two similar types of networks so that they look like one network. The word transparent is often used with bridges because network clients do not know the bridge is even in place. 17. A gateway joins two dissimilar networks. There can be a lot of protocol conversion work to do. Often the gateway needs to be configured on client systems where communications are directed to the gateway and then some address mapping is provided to 18.