You are on the security team for a manufacturing company. The network architecture group wants to replace the appliance that currently intermediates all outbound web traffic from production servers. The device receives each server's HTTP/HTTPS request, forwards the request to the Internet using its own public IP address, and then returns the response. Because of this design, public web sites can see only the appliance's address, not the private IP of the originating server. Which type of network appliance is the team planning to replace?
A forward proxy server sits between internal clients and external resources. It makes outbound requests on behalf of the clients, so the destination sees only the proxy's public IP address. This hides the internal system's identity, allows content filtering and caching, and can log or inspect traffic.
A firewall may also perform NAT, but its primary purpose is to enforce security policy, not to proxy application-layer requests.
A switch operates at Layer 2/3 inside the LAN and does not normally mask IP addresses from external destinations.
A router moves packets between networks; unless specifically configured as a NAT device or proxy, it does not conceal the internal host at the application layer.
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