Briefly discuss the functions of NAT, ICS, and WINS as well as their uses - Essay Example

NAT ICS WINS NAT In the process of Network Address Translation (NAT), a network device such as a firewall or a router, assigns a public address to a computer (or group of computers) inside the private network. NAT works on the device that is immediately connected to the Internet and it hides the rest of the network from the public, thus making the internal network appear as single device to the rest of the world. NAT feature provides an extra layer of security between the internet cloud and the protected internal network.

NAT can be used to allow selective access to external network, restricting port access and protocols. It does the access control to resources between computers on the either sides of the firewall. NAT also conserves the number of public addresses used within an organization, considering the economic and security aspectsWINSWindows Internet Name Service (WINS) is the Microsoft’s NetBIOS name resolution service for the TCP/IP networks. WINS helps the users to access the resources with NetBIOS names in the remote network.

WINS supports NetBIOS over TCP/IP (NetBT).ICSInternet Connection Sharing (ICS) is a feature implemented in Windows Operating system to share a single Internet connection present in one computer with the other computers on the same local area network. ICS works with the help of Dynamical host control protocol of (DHCP) and network address translation (NAT).This Internet connection sharing is done by using a device with Internet access such as 3G cellular service, broadband via Ethernet, or other Internet gateway as the access point for the other devices .

Referencesn.a (n.d). Network Address translation Concepts. Retrieved From http://www.firewall.cx/networking-topics/network-address-translation-nat/227-nat-concepts.html