BY MICHAEL ROACH

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A local area network (LAN) consists of two or more computers connected together in a

building or home using software and hardware. A LAN is contrasted to a wide area

network (WAN) such as the Internet, which covers a large geographic area. In a LAN,

there is a main computer or server, and remote computers called clients. By creating

a LAN in the home or office, computers on the LAN can share files, resources, and if

desired, an Internet connection. A LAN can be one of two types: wired or wireless. A

wired LAN requires Ethernet cable to physically connect all computers on the network to

a main device called a switch. A wireless LAN uses radio waves to communicate,

eliminating the need for wires. Therefore, the hardware used in a LAN should all be of

either the wireless or wired type. A LAN is fairly easy to setup. All Microsoft operating

systems since Windows 98 Special Edition (SE) have included built-in networking

software. In terms of hardware, each computer requires a network interface card (NIC).

A switch is also required. This is a device that resembles an external modem and

directs information on the network. If the LAN will be talking to another network, like the

Internet, a router is also required. Luckily, one can purchase an external DSL modem

with a built-in switch and router, in wireless or wired configurations. Desktop computers

typically use internal NICs that slip into an available slot on the motherboard, while a

laptop might use a portable computer (PC) NIC. This type of NIC resembles a thick

credit card that can be inserted into the PC card slot on the laptop. If the LAN is to be

hard-wired, each NIC must have an Ethernet port for connecting an Ethernet cable. In a

wireless LAN, each NIC might feature a small radio wave antenna. The server is hard-

wired to the DSL modem, switch or router, while the clients can communicate

wirelessly, if desired. If there is to be no connection to the Internet or any other LAN or

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WAN, a switch alone will be fine. Once the LAN has been set up, an administrator can

designate which files and programs can be shared on the LAN. Some areas of the

server may be kept behind a firewall to prevent access. All traffic on the LAN,

including email, Internet surfing and other activities, can be monitored by the

administrator using various tools. The advantages of a LAN in the office are manifold.

By having a central printer, for example, a business can avoid buying individual printers

for each workstation. Workflow is enhanced while being easier than ever to control and

administer. Flexibility and creativity can also improve. ALAN is a win-win situation for

management and employees alike. A LAN at home is extremely convenient. Share

programs, images, music and digital projects, and enjoy gaming. Share a high-end color

printer, scanner or other equipment. If concerned about your children’s Internet use,

a LAN is one way to supervise online activity. A hard-wired LAN is more trouble to

install, as it requires running a physical Ethernet cable from each client to the DSL,

switch or router. However, a wired LAN is reliable and secure. A wireless LAN is easier

to install and less expensive, but requires a few more steps in the software setup to

ensure it is secure. It may also be slower than a wired LAN, but this depends on the

wireless standard used, as newer standards effectively compete with Ethernet speeds.

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 or Wi-Fi 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

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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 "tunneling," 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

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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 personal, 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. A WAN (Wide Area Network) network can

be established in many ways and different types of WAN. Wan can be established

using leased lines, circuit switch network, packet switching, frame or packet relay and

cell relays. Packet switching is the one of the most common types of establishing a

WAN (Wide Area Network) network. In a packet switching method a digital network is

established. In this method suitable data blocks are created. These data blocks are

known as packets. The data travels in the form of varied bit rate. These bits travel in the

form of sequences of packets over the network and their delay is dependent upon the

load of traffic over the network.X.25 and frame relays are the most suitable protocols for

this kind of network. Leased lines are the other most suitable and quick way to establish

a WAN (Wide Area Network). However leased lines are usually not preferred due to

their expensive nature. Leased lines help establish a symmetric connection from one

point to the other usually this involves an amalgamation of two LANs. When a network

is established using a packet switching method. A user usually receives he variable bit

rate at its end, because in packet switching the data travels in bits which unite to make

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varied bit transfer packets. If the purpose of the WAN (Wide Area Network) network is to

attain a constant bit rate transfer then cell relay can be used. In this method data is

separated in fixed bits to travel over a network. The sample protocol of this sort of data

can be ATM. This connection is preferred when we need simultaneous flow of data

streams.

Contrast with other communication networks such as Personal Area Networks(PAN), Local Area

Networks (LAN), Campus Area Network (CAN), Desk Area Network (DAN) or Metropolitan

Area Networks (MAN) that are usually limited to a room, building or campus respectively. Wide

Area Networks (WAN)s are supposed to provide communication solutions for organizations or people

who need to exchange information between two distant places e.g. within one country or between two

different countries. In fact, WANs are usually maintained by the public telecommunication companies

like British Telecom (BT, UK), AT&T (USA) etc. which offer different communication services to the

customers.
 
If we talk about the trends and development within the WAN technology then we have so many

terms & technologies that came across during the maturity period of Wide Area Network (WAN).

Every one of them is based Firstly on what we have basic Wide Area Network (WAN) service? Which

usually offered by leased line? A leased line is a point-to-point connection between two places.

Implemented by different transmission media usually though Publish Switched Telephone Network

(PSTN) trunks, which create one link between its nodes. An organization whose networks are based on

such lines has to connect each office with one line, meaning that each office is connected to as many

lines as the number of offices it is connected to. The other types of emerging WAN technologies are

that we are going to discuss one by one in detail are as follows;

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  ATM

 Frame Relay

 SONET

Most of the Wide Area Networks (WAN) s are made for one particular organization and are private

and some others made by Internet Service Providers (ISPs). Wide Area Network provides a

connections from an organization’s Local Area Network to the internet. Wide Area Networks (WAN)s

are mostly made using leased lines and at each end of the leased line a router connects to the Local

Area Network (LAN) on one side and a hub within the Wide Area Network (WAN) on the other

router. Leased lines can be very expensive instead of using leased lines Wide Area Networks (WAN) s

can also be made using less costly circuit switching or packet switching methods and equipments.

Using network protocols including TCP/IP deliver transport and addressing functions within Wide

Area Networks (WAN) s. Protocols including Packet over SONET/SDH, MPLS, ATM and Frame

relay are often used by Internet Service Providers (ISP) s to deliver the links that are used in Wide

Area Networks (WAN) s. Up until now networks that support business evolution have not delivered

the reliability and flexibility required for multi-site organizations. Issues such as time delay and the

need for ongoing application tuning and performance management all render past WAN solutions

insufficient for next-generation and mission critical business processes. Therefore networks that are

always available, never drop packets and deliver predictable, deterministic network responses are

needed to resolve these problems. This will enable enterprises to cost-effectively support new IT

initiatives for real-time and transaction-oriented application traffic over multiple sites as well as store

data over large distances.

The three areas that will all have a significant impact on the inter-site/WAN traffic demands of the

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enterprise are networked remote storage, distributed computing and IT asset virtualization. Enterprises

therefore require a new type of approach that a not only complement todays WAN, but accommodates

tomorrow’s requirements both technically and economically. Enterprises need to move away from

multiple dedicated single-application networks to more flexible, adaptable network architecture. This

can be achieved in what Ciena calls an ‘Adaptive WAN’.

Adaptive WAN is a network solution designed to provide businesses with the ability to support any

mix of applications between sites by providing all traffic with high performance, zero packet loss and

low fixed latency, regardless of where the data is sourced from — a remote LAN-based server, a SAN-

based storage array, or a legacy mainframe. An Adaptive WAN does not attempt to priorities or

accelerate one form of traffic at the expense of another. Rather, it advocates a simpler approach by

leveraging highly-reliable, intelligently-switched transport-based networks to provide the throughput,

deterministic response times, security and high availability that mission critical applications and data

require.

As they are transparent to all applications, Adaptive WANs provide flexibility to support changing

application requirements. Intelligent Layer 1 and Layer 2 networks allow for application transparency

due to their ability to provide local LAN-like connectivity across the WAN. The solution provides high

bandwidth, high application availability, near zero packet loss and low determinist latencies regardless

of the load or application. All in all, the Adaptive WAN is a simpler, lower-cost solution that supports

the productivity needs of business user. The increase in usage of bandwidth-intensive applications will

always put pressure on the traditional WAN. However, as businesses experience exponential traffic

growth and increasingly operate across cities, countries or around the world, they will need WANs that

can provide high throughput with minimal latency. Employing an Adaptive WAN strategy that

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accommodates these needs will enable businesses to meet the network requirements of emerging

technology applications over any given geography. It also means that organizations can simultaneously

solve three major network challenges: today’s networked remote storage, the near term proliferation of

Web services and future multiple-site grid computing.

Adaptive WANs enable organizations to place their IT and storage assets anywhere at any time. As a

mission-critical solution to the multi-site organization, Adaptive WANs handle both TCP/IP and

storage protocols and minimize applications “tuning” — a cost-cutter for most IT enterprises. With an

Adaptive WAN businesses can more quickly deploy new applications because it provides a highly-

reliable network with high bandwidth, deterministic end-user response and physical layer security,

which is an obvious competitive advantage for any business looking for a more effective

communications infrastructure and an increase in workforce productivity.

Metropolitan Area Network (MAN) is a computer network usually spanning a campus or a

city, which typically connect a few local area networks using high speed backbone technologies.

A MAN often provides efficient connections to a wide area network (WAN). There are three

important features which discriminate MANs from LANs or WANs:

1. The network size falls intermediate between LANs and WANs. A MAN typically covers

an area of between 5 and 50 km range. Many MANs cover an area the size of a city,

although in some cases MANs may be as small as a group of buildings.

2. A MAN (like a WAN) is not generally owned by a single organization. The MAN, its

communications links and equipment are generally owned by either a consortium of users

or by a network service provider who sells the service to the users.

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 3. A MAN often acts as a high speed network to allow sharing of regional resources. It is

also frequently used to provide a shared connection to other networks using a link to a

WAN.

MAN adopted technologies from both LAN and WAN to serve its purpose. Some legacy

technologies used for MAN are ATM, FDDI, DQDB and SMDS. These older technologies are in

the process of being displaced by Gigabit Ethernet and 10 Gigabit Ethernet. At the physical

level, MAN links between LANs have been built on fiber optical cables or using wireless

technologies such as microwave or radio.

The Metropolitan Area Network (MAN) protocols are mostly at the data link level (layer 2 in

the OSI model ), which are defined by IEEE, ITU-T, etc. One example of a MAN is the MIND

Network located in Pasco County, Florida. It connects all of Pasco's media centers to a

centralized mainframe at the district office by using dedicated phone lines, coaxial cabling, and

wireless communications providers.

Most widely used technologies to develop a MAN (Metropolitan Area Network) network are FDDI

(fiber distribution data interface), ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode) and SMDS (switched multi

megabit data service).ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode) is the most frequently used of all. ATM

(Asynchronous Transfer Mode) is a digital data transfer technology. It was developed in 1980 to

improve the transportation of real time data over a single network. ATM (Asynchronous Transfer

Mode) works just like cell relay system, where data is separated in the form of fixed equal sized

packets and is transferred overtime. The purpose of ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode) was to

access clear audio and video results during a video conferencing. The attributes of ATM has enabled it

to become a base of wide area data networking.

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ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode) combines the characteristics of circuit switching and packet

switching, which allows it to transfer even the real time data. FDDI is a standard for data transfer over

LAN, which can be extended to the range of approximately 200kms. FDDI can help support the data

transmission of many thousand users. This is the reason why it is referred to as the MAN (Metropolitan

Area Network) technology. FDDI uses optical fiber for its basic infrastructure that is why it is referred

to as fiber distribution data interface. When data is transferred through a connectionless service we use

the technology named as SMDS. Connectionless service implies that data is transferred by storing the

information in the header and it reaches its destination independently through any network. When the

data is transferred using the technology of SMDS, it also forms small data packets just like in ATM.

However SMDS allows the transmission of data over large geographical areas in the form of

datagram’s (the data packets of an unreliable data service provider). Nowadays MAN (Metropolitan

Area Network) links are established using infrared and microwave signals. Having small networks

compounded into a large network such as in MAN provides security for the communication shared in

between the networks.

References

1. http://www.techrepublic.com/whitepapers/networking+and+communications/lan+-
+wan/local+area+networks+(lan)
2. http://www.computerweekly.com/Articles/2008/01/15/228924/Future-network-trends-
wireless-Wan-will-regroup.htm
3. http://www.zdnet.com.au/whitepaper/wireless-lan-technology-current-state-and-future-

trends_wp-330975.htm

4. http://openlibrary.org/books/OL10093298M/Future_LAN_Technologies

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5. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_area_network

6. http://en.kioskea.net/contents/initiation/man.php3

7. http://www.comptechdoc.org/independent/networking/cert/netwan.html

8. http://compnetworking.about.com/od/basicnetworkingconcepts/a/network_types.htm

9. http://my.safaribooksonline.com/book/certification/networkplus/0789728303/wan-

technologies/ch07lev1sec2

10. http://ebookee.org/Introduction-to-Data-Networks-PDN-LAN-MAN-WAN-and-Wireless-Data-

Technologies-and-Systems-Repost-_285383.html

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