Explaining What is NAT ?

What is NAT? NAT, or Network Address Translation, refers to the intermediary or �agent' between a local network and the public network. Basically, how it functions is like a street address, where information can be easily delivered to the correct location with the existence of the unique address among the many other addresses in a network. In tech talk, this unique address is called an IP address, which stands for Internet Protocol. The IP address is a 32-bit number that is unique so that specific information can easily find its way to that address and relay the information. As the Internet is very big, there are extremely a lot of IP addresses available. Yet, these IP addresses are divided according to their classes and use. However, because the number of Internet users are growing daily, more IP addresses are created, which could use up the possible different chain of numbers. So what is NAT suppose to do in this circumstance? In this case, NAT helps to partly solve the issue by allowing many different computers in an area to use one unique IP address to represent all of them, like illustrated earlier, a street address. What it does is to translate the traffic of information coming in and out of the local network. This is made possible by using a single device, like a router or firewall, to connect the local network of computers to a public network. There are a few types of NAT that works in different ways. Static NAT will translate an unregistered IP address to a registered one, so that that address can be accessed by information from outside its network. Similarly, also Dynamic NAT translates the unregistered IP address to a registered one, however, the registered IP addresses will come from only a specific group of registered IP addresses. google_ad_client = "pub-2311940475806896"; /* 300x250, created 1/6/11 */ google_ad_slot = "0098904308"; google_ad_width = 300; google_ad_height = 250; Overloading is a type of Dynamic NAT, but has multiple unregistered IP addresses using one single registered one. On the other hand, Overlapping is when the local network is using a registered IP address, but because it is common, the router must make that IP address unique to avoid conflict. At the same time, information from the public network would be translated back into the unregistered IP address of that internal network.

access point vs router