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So why do I need a router? Well, you get the standard ... it depends, answer! If you have only one computer -> then you probably don't need a router. You do have your firewall turned on don't you? If you have multiple computers behind your dsl/cable/sat modem then you either already have a router, or you are looking for a solution and have come to the right place. If your current router is lacking on what it can do and you need a more versatile solution, you still are at the right place so read on... The Internet is operational as we know it because of routers. A router makes ... routing ... decisions based on what it knows about the networks it is connected to. Yes, there are different types of routers. A few types are: edge, border, masquerading and NAT. We are more interested in the last two. Both are pretty much the same as far as we are concerned, so that brings us to firewalls. Firewalls protect your internal network computers by blocking access to them from the Internet. In other words, the bad guys in Internet land can NOT logon, view or otherwise use your computer for any dastardly deed. You can get to the Internet as the firewall is setup to allow outgoing access to any computer on your local network that it is protecting. Keep in mind that a firewall cannot protect you from yourself. If you click into or install rogue software, the firewall has no way of detecting that you have done something wrong or unintentional. In todays computing environment people want to get from the Internet to an internal machine; usually via a RDP connection so they can deal with software applications setup on a W2K3 server or other box. In fact, RDP seems to be a great way to deal with stuff. For instance I have found that dealing with banking sites is a breeze as I connect to my internal server when I am away then surf to the banking site. I don't have to enter ( or remember ) all those st00pid authentication schemes that they have come up with. I just login and do what I need to do. Even better is dealing with email when on the road. I don't have to know any setup nor do I have to change someone else's computer machine just so I can read and send email. I log into my local server, run the email client ( Thunderbird in my case ) and deal with email. So what does all of this get you? Most important is the protection of a firewall! Secondly, I can monitor ( and actively do so ) the router/firewalls that I install. In fact, even if you don't have a W2K3 server on your internal network, I can log into any of your XPPro machines and help you with software upgrades, printing problems and troubleshooting. You do not have to be sitting at the machine in a 'remote help' session, I can take care of it all remotely. Well, almost all as I can not turn the machine on, or enter 'safe mode' if needed, nor can I replace hardware components from afar. Although I can lead you though troubleshooting to figure out what is wrong and get that part to you when found. Give me a call or email ( contact page ) and we can talk about your issues or concerns! |
It is as simple as that. Skip to the next paragraph if you don't want to read a little more technical description... Ok say you are going to surf to your favorite web site and have a bookmark saved. When you click that bookmark the networking portion of your OS queries your DNS server to find the IP address of the web server that bookmark is hosted on. If the IP address is NOT on your local network, your request is then forwarded to your router. The router decides if that address is on any of the networks directly connected to the it and if not, forwards the request to your routers router ( next hop ). The next hop router does exactly the same thing 
until that web server that is going to process your http request is found. The web server then processes your request and returns the result back to its router using the same sequence above, except in reverse. Although this is simplified and there is more to it, the concept is easy on the brain now isn't it?