Meaning – The term multiple gateways, refers to more than one gateway serving to connect the same two SNA networks for cross-network sessions.
A gateway is a piece of networking hardware or software used in telecommunications for telecommunications networks that allows data to flow from one discrete network to another. Gateways are distinct from routers or switches in that they communicate using more than one protocol to connect multiple networks.
A network gateway provides interoperability between networks and contains devices, such as protocol translators, impedance matchers, rate converters, fault isolators, or signal translators. A network gateway requires the establishment of mutually acceptable administrative procedures between the networks using the gateway.
Example of usage – “A network gateway connects an office or home intranet to the Internet. If an office or home computer user wants to load a web page, at least two network gateways are accessed—one to get from the office or home network to the Internet and one to get from the Internet to the computer that serves the web page.”
