Network Bridges and Network Routers

A router is a networking device that connects two or more packet-switched networks (LANs or WANs) or subnetworks. The router performs two roles. The first is to manage traffic between the networks or subnetworks by forwarding data packets to their intended IP addresses and the second is to allow multiple devices to use the same Internet connection.

A network bridge is a physical piece of hardware used to connect multiple LANs together with a larger Local Area Network (LAN). Bridging is the term used to describe the mechanism or process of network connection and aggregation. The bridge operates at the data link layer of the Operating System Interface model.

Routers and network bridges are networking connection devices. Routers work at the network layer and are tasked to find the shortest path for a data packet between IP addresses. Network bridges connect devices in a network and routers Roters connect devices across multiple networks.