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W.A.N. Wide Area Network - An Overview |
A Wide Area Network (WAN) is a network that spans a large geographical area, the most common example being the Internet. A WAN is contrasted to smaller local area networks (LANs) and metropolitan area networks (MANs). LANs are home or office networks, while a MAN might encompass a campus or service residents of a city, such as in a citywide wireless Network.
The Internet is a public WAN, but there are many ways to create a business model or private WAN. A private WAN is essentially two or more LANs connected to each other. For example, a company with offices in Los Angeles, Texas and New York might have a LAN setup at each office. Through leased telephone lines, all three LANs can communicate with each other, forming a WAN.
Routers are used to direct communications between LANs communicating on a WAN. The router, installed on the leased line, reads the "envelopes" or headers on each packet of data that passes through the WAN, sending it to the proper LAN. When the packet arrives at the LAN, a device called a switch sends the data packet on to the correct machine. Hence, the WAN acts like an interface between LANs for long-distance communication. A WAN that runs on a leased line is a private WAN, as there is no public traffic on the line.
Because leased lines are expensive, many businesses that requires a WAN use an Internet Service Provider (ISP) to provide WAN access instead. In this case, each LAN in the WAN communicates through a standard digital subscriber line (DSL) account. The DSL Internet account uses an existing telephone line while sharing that line with the telephone.
A DSL-based WAN uses public Internet lines. To protect the WAN from intrusion, a Virtual Private Network (VPN) is set up. Using a VPN, all WAN traffic remains encrypted en-route through the Internet, and is decrypted only at its destination. This is referred to as "tunnelling," because the WAN is creating a secure channel through a public space. Firewalls also block intrusion by hackers. This type of WAN is arguably the most popular because it is cost-efficient with great benefits. It operates at high transfer speeds and is an "always on" connection, providing 24/7 uptime for the WAN.
The least expensive type of WAN uses the Internet over a dial-up modem. This type of WAN is not as popular, since the price of DSL has decreased enough to become competitive with dial-up accounts. A dial-up modem only operates at 56 kilobits per second (kbps), while a standard DSL connection is about 20 times faster. A dial-up connection also cannot share telephone service. Finally, dial-up is not an "always on" connection. When offices are in different time zones, this can effectively reduce WAN uptime.
A WAN is an excellent way for companies to utilize geographically remote resources and centralize productivity. A leased line or affordable DSL-based WAN allows employees, field personnel, and management full or restricted access to pertinent data twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Considering the negligible cost of DSL today, a WAN makes good business sense.
What are the Benefits
- Covers a large geographical area so long distance businesses can connect on the one network
- No need for separate servers saving money
- No need for extra technical support at all locations
- Shares software and resources with connecting workstations
W.A.N. Wide Area Network - How can it help your Business
For the majority of enterprise corporate Wide Area Network (WAN) infrastructures will form one of their biggest operational expenses in terms of total cost of networking ownership. Given this fact, selecting the most appropriate wide area solution - or indeed combination of solutions - is a choice that firms cannot afford to undertake lightly.
The decision is complicated by what at first sight appears to be a confusing number of options in terms of technologies and permutations of cost versus performance tradeoffs.
A traditionally popular method of interconnecting geographically dispersed corporate sites is by renting dedicated leased lines between each node on the WAN. Leased line connectivity offers excellent quality of service and security resulting in reduced support costs.
However, deploying leased lines is also the most expensive way of creating a WAN infrastructure. According to Alison Adams, product manager for data services at Telewest Business, the ultimate disadvantage of serial leased lines is cost and relatively rigid bandwidths, together with costly upgrade paths.
Because of this and the need for increased flexibility, leased lines are increasingly regarded as inefficient use of expensive bandwidth and so many enterprises are now migrating from the communication technology to more cost-effective options such as IP-based Virtual Private Networks (IP-VPNs) or Frame Relay.
Client Testimonials
- Tile Importer in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire : We put a tender out to get quotes for a new network to support our warehouse and retail outlets. Nemark came in and gave a very good case for a particular network. After consideration we decided to go for a Windows Server and Terminal Server system and quite honestly have not looked back since. Our network has been a great help in making out stock control, sales and accounts system work without flaw and for that we are very grateful. We also use Nemark to give us IT Support and the service is second to none, Always quick response and over time have become good friends with the staff and management of the company. We would recommend them to anyone who needs a professional IT Support and Delivery company.
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