The Executive's Basic Guide to Intranets
(Sidebar)

How TCP/IP and IPX Work on Intranets

In many companies there will continue to be a mix of TCP/IP-based intranets and networks based on other, proprietary networking technology like Novell's NetWare which uses the IPX (Internet Packet Exchange) protocol as a way to deliver data. TCP/IP networks can't recognize this protocol. To get around this problem, when an IPX packet is to be sent across an intranet to another Novell network, it is first encapsulated inside an IP packet by a NetWare server specifically set up for and dedicated to providing the IP transport mechanism for IPX packets (i.e. a NetWare TCP/IP server).

An intranet treats this IP packet as it would any other and routes it to the receiving NetWare network. On the receiving NetWare network, a NetWare TCP/IP server decapsulates the IP packet and discards it, reading the original IPX packet to determine how to deliver the data to its final destination.

1997 Copyright 3Com