An application-level gateway (ALG) is a tool or software program program that gives a safe and environment friendly strategy to join functions to a community. ALGs function on the utility layer of the OSI mannequin, which is the best layer of the mannequin and is accountable for offering application-specific performance. This enables ALGs to know the particular wants of every utility and to offer the mandatory providers to help these wants.
ALGs are sometimes used to offer safety, load balancing, and protocol translation providers. Security measures supplied by ALGs embrace firewall safety, intrusion detection, and encryption. Load balancing options supplied by ALGs embrace the flexibility to distribute site visitors throughout a number of servers and to offer failover help. Protocol translation options supplied by ALGs embrace the flexibility to transform between completely different community protocols, equivalent to TCP and UDP.
