Physical Network Connection With Routers

The basic hardware component used to connect heterogeneous networks is a Router.Physically,routers resembles bridges that means each router is a special purpose hardware system dedicated to the task of interconnecting networks.Like a bridge,a contains a processor and memory as well as a separate I/O interface for each network to which it connects.The network treats a connection to a router, the same as the connection to any other computer.

The most important that you have to kept in your mind about router is that it is not only used to connect two similar technology,it can also be used to connect two different types of network technology. Router can connect two LAN's,a LAN and a WAN,or two WAN's.Furthermore,when a router connects two network in the same general category,the networks do not need to use the same technology.For ex:- A router can connect an Ethernet LAN to a frame relay network.Thus,each cloud represents an arbitrary network technology.On summarizing this whole,we can say that a router is a special purpose system dedicated to the task of interconnecting networks.A router can interconnect networks that use different technologies,including different media,physical addressing schemes or frame formats.

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