Building multi-way gateways for local area networks

A method is proposed for constructing multiway gateways to interconnect several local area networks (LANs) or wide area networks (WANs) and provide gateway services among them. A multiway gateway accommodates intercommunications between networks whose subnet protocols may differ and whose locations may be geographically dispersed, and has advantages of flexibility and efficiency. The proposed approach uses the concept of remote gateways, in which the functionality of a gateway is partitioned into two separate modules (local and remote), and a dedicated communication link connects these two parts. A description is given of the concept of a remote gateway and the approach used to construct multiway gateways based on them. The design issues for a multiway gateway and possible applications to network management are also addressed