Router and Gateway Peers

Routers

• Routers in JXTA support the "endpoint protocol". 
• Like physical networks, a few routers support a large network - not all peers need to implement this protocol.
• Unlike its physical counterpart P2P networks are less stable and include addresses that are not stable.
• Routes in JXTA are self-healing. Likewise, (and somewhat at odds) routers can cache network information.

Gateways

• Act as communications relays.
• Unlike routers, gateways relay messages between peers not requests.
• Because the physical topology of the internet is messy and contains many barriers like firewalls, NAT, proxies, etc. gateways exist to act as middlemen between different types of protocols.
• JXTA supports TCP and HTTP now, others like WAP are in the works.