Networking: A Beginner’s Guide Fifth Edition- P10:I have run into many people over the years who have gained good even impressive working knowledge of PCs, operating systems, applications, and common problems and solutions. Many of these people are wizards with desktop computers. | Chapter 3 Understanding Networking 27 To choose the most suitable remote access solution you ll need to consider what the users need to do remotely the number of users both in total and at any given time and how much you want to spend. See Chapter 10 for more information about remote access. Wide Area Networks You should think of a wide area network WAN as a sort of metanetwork. A WAN is simply multiple local area networks LANs connected together. This can be accomplished in many different ways depending on how often the LANs need to be connected to one another how much data capacity bandwidth is required and how great the distance is between the LANs. Solutions include full-time leased telephone lines that can carry 56 Kbps of data dedicated DS1 T-1 lines carrying Mbps DS3 lines carrying Mbps and other forms like private satellites carrying even higher bandwidths. You can also create a WAN using VPNs over the Internet. Although this method usually offers inconsistent bandwidth it s often the least expensive. WANs are created when the users of one LAN need frequent access to the resources on another LAN. For instance a company s enterprise resource planning ERP system might be running at the company s headquarters but the warehouse location needs access to it to use its inventory and shipping functions. As a general rule if you can design and build a system that doesn t require a WAN you re usually better off because WAN links are often expensive to maintain. However the geographic and management structure of a particular company can dictate the use of a WAN. Internet and Intranet The Internet has become vital to the productivity of most businesses and handling Internet connectivity on a network is often an important network service. Many different types of services are available over the Internet including e-mail the Web and Usenet newsgroups. DEFINE-IT xAN A myriad of terms refer to what are essentially wide area networks all with variations on the .
