What is NSAP? Understanding Network Service Access Points

NSAP stands for "Network Service Access Point". It is a network architecture that was developed by Cisco Systems in the early 1990s as part of their Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) strategy. The goal of NSAP was to provide a common framework for networking devices from different vendors to interoperate seamlessly.

In the context of NSAP, an access point refers to a device that provides access to a network service, such as a router, switch, or server. The NSAP architecture defines a set of protocols and standards for how these access points communicate with each other and with the network infrastructure.

NSAP was designed to be vendor-neutral, meaning that it was intended to work with devices from multiple manufacturers, including Cisco, IBM, and Microsoft. However, despite its promise, NSAP never gained widespread adoption and has largely been replaced by other networking architectures, such as the Internet Protocol (IP) and the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) model.

Today, the term "NSAP" is mostly of historical interest and is no longer widely used in modern networking discussions.