What is a WAN? Wide-area network definition and examples

 

WANs connect smaller networks across long distances, and their architecture, protocols and technologies have evolved to their latest incarnation, SD-WAN.

People want to connect to all of their apps all of the time from all of their devices no matter where they are. And they pretty much can, thanks to wide-area networks (WANs).

At its core, a WAN is a network of networks. The Internet itself is a giant WAN, and how you connect to it can be as diverse as through an Ethernet cable, coaxial cable, or a cellular radio signal.

Your office network, home Wi-Fi, cellphone, smartwatch, doorbell camera and vehicle-based Internet connection are just endpoints on a vast global WAN that is constantly evolving to carry more traffic, and to carry that traffic faster as the demands for near-instantaneous access to resources increase.

How is a WAN different from a LAN?

A Local Area Network (LAN) is confined to a relatively small area. In the business world, LANs are generally limited to a single building or a small campus. In a LAN topology, all the devices that end users need to access are connected by switches and routers. Your home Wi-Fi is also a LAN, where you can connect multiple devices, including laptops, desktops, printers and smart home devices via a central router.

When your network requires access to resources that are not available on the LAN, an external link is added to the router. So, while a LAN connects you to local resources on your network, a WAN connects multiple networks together to share resources.]

In the case of a company that has a corporate headquarters and multiple branch offices scattered around the world, the WAN connects multiple LANs, While LANs typically connect end users through Ethernet technology, WANs can employ a variety of transport methods.


What is a private WAN?

LANs are typically maintained by an organization’s IT staff, but WANs are typically reliant on physical connections provided by the major telecommunication carriers. There are different ways to transport WAN data, each with benefits, drawbacks, and costs.

A private WAN is implemented with leased data lines. The service provider maintains the network (through multiple interconnects and vendors, if necessary) to create a continuous link between the network endpoints. Leased lines provide consistent symmetric upload and download speeds. Since the service provider reserves specific infrastructure for a private WAN, it is usually the most expensive option. Should there be damage at any point in the link you will likely see an interruption in service, making it necessary for you to plan for redundancy.

What is a cloud WAN?

As employees moved to remote locations and applications moved to the cloud, organizations began shifting to a cloud-based WAN approach that takes advantage of a mesh of networks to provide highly redundant connectivity anywhere in the world.

For example, Amazon offers AWS Cloud WAN, a managed service that customers can use to build and manage a global network that connects resources running across your cloud and on-premises environments, including branch offices, data centers, and Amazon Virtual Private Clouds (VPCs).

What is an MPLS WAN?

An MPLS network is managed end-to-end by a single service provider such as Verizon or AT&T, using an already existing set of physical networks to create a virtual path through them. The Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol suite (TCP/IP) breaks the data stream into smaller chunks, or packets, that are sent independently and reassembled at the destination endpoints of the network.

Each packet contains a payload and an identifying header that includes destination and reassembly information. Every packet is verified at the destination and, if successful, an acknowledgment is returned to the sender. Should verification fail, a request is sent back to the point of origin to be re-transmitted.

What is a wireless WAN?

A wireless WAN deploys cellular broadband radio devices to connect with a series of radio towers, referred to as cells, which act as base stations to convert the wireless data packets that travel across private or cloud WANs. (It is also possible to connect multiple devices to perform point-to-point communication using a wireless transportation layer.)

The wireless network infrastructure is designed to support millions of connections across a nationwide footprint. As the endpoint transceiver passes beyond the range of a cell, the network automatically hands the connection off to the next, providing uninterrupted connectivity. Since the cellular network is already established, a wireless WAN can be deployed quickly and relatively inexpensively.

Future of WANs

WAN technology has come a long way since the early days of circuit-switched telephone lines and 2400 baud modems. Today, leased lines, wireless, MPLS, and the public internet makes it possible for you to videoconference on demand from your telephone to anyone around the world, backup your data to another city, manage the operations of a self-driving vehicle, and work from any place you can get a radio signal.

WANs aren’t just limited to Earth. NASA and other space agencies are working to create a reliable "interplanetary internet," which aims to transmit test messages between the International Space Station and ground stations. The Disruption Tolerant Networking (DTN) program is the first step in providing an internet-like structure for communications between space-based devices, including communicating between the Earth and Moon, or other planets.

See more Information: -  network.sciencefather.com

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