Industrial gateway and industrial router are two confusable terms that often come up in the topic of networking and communication devices. They are seen as synonyms and do have something in common. However, we also need to get a general information about the differences between industrial gateway and industrial router.
What is a industrial gateway
As the name implies, a gateway is a network entity, also known as a protocol converter. It connects the computers of one network to another and defines the boundaries of the network. If two networks with different protocols want to be connected to each other, both networks need to have industrial gateways that provide a point of presence and entry for computers from both networks to communicate. In other words, gateways can join different systems.
Industrial gateways exist in routers, switches, or PCs. When communication is carried out within the same network segment, there is no need to involve the gateway. Only when the host communicates with devices outside this network segment, all packets need to be sent to the industrial gateway device and then forwarded through the processing protocol of the gateway device.
What is a industrial router
A industrial router is a switching device that is responsible for receiving, analyzing, and forwarding the data packets from the network to connected computers. A home router connects to the modem and acts like a traffic director on your local network, which connects your devices via WiFi signal or Ethernet, tunneling information between them and out to the modem. And the enterprise router has more powerful functions than a home router such as VPN service and flash memory, etc. Besides, there are wireless and wired routers options available.
Industrial Gateway vs industrial router: what is the similarity
Both industrial routers and industrial gateways are hardware components in a network that regulate traffic and determine its flow between two or more networks. Sometimes, a network may use routers both as endpoint and access-point, in this case, the router becomes a gateway.
A gateway often works with a industrial router and a switch to complete the routing process. When a gateway receives a packet, it translates the protocol, and the router directs it to the next router.
It must be pointed out that network cards must be inserted into both gateways and industrial routers to facilitate this communication and virtually all routers and gateways have this setup shipped out of the factory without requiring the user to buy a separate network card.
Industrial Gateway vs industrial router: what is the difference
A router is a networking layer system used to manage and forward data packets to devices network while a gateway is simply a hardware that acts as a gate between the networks. Besides, industrial routers and industrial gateways are very different in their working principle.
Before arriving at the industrial router, packets go to the gateway channel first, and the gateway checks the header information at once. After checking for any kind of error in the destination IP address and packet. According to the needs of the destination network, it carries out data conversion and protocol conversion on the packet, which is also the most critical step. Finally, the processed packet is forwarded to the router to establish intelligent communication between the two different networks.
The industrial router extracts the destination address from the received packet, determines the network number in the address, and then looks up the routing table to find the entry matching the destination network. The routing table determines the next stop, destination, output interface, and other routing-related parameters that match the current packet. Finally, the packet is sent to the computer with the best route.
Conclusion
The relationship between industrial gateway vs industrial router is summed up in one sentence: a gateway is a concept while a router is a device that implements a gateway. If your devices are on the same network, then routers and gateways can be peer to peer. But if you want to connect two different networks with different protocols, the gateway can suit your demands. Some routers and gateways in the market can already replace each other. The technology and capabilities of gateways and routers will continue to evolve and become more sophisticated over the next few years.
