Connecting terminals to multiple LANs

With computing facilities often distributed over sites that are both physically and administratively separate, many organizations find themselves with several unconnected Local Area Networks (LANs). Eventually it becomes desirable to enhance communication capabilities between these LANs so that users can access all hosts on all LANs. This paper describes a terminal gateway, a system that provides users having terminal access to hosts on one LAN with an ability to access all hosts on another LAN. Such a gateway solution is appropriate when: (1) separate terminal connections to each LAN are prohibitively expensive and (2) commercially available bridges or gateways are unsuitable for use. A functional specification of the terminal gateway, the communication protocol it uses, and a specification of performance metrics maintained by the gateway are described. * This research was supported in part by the Office of Naval Research Department of Defense Contract Number