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What Is a WAN?

What Is a WAN?

In its most straightforward form, wide-area networks (WAN) are a group of local-area networks (LANs) or other types of networks that transmits data to each other.  A WAN is primarily a system of networks, with the WWW the planet’s largest WAN. Currently, there are numerous kinds of WANs, built for various use cases that reach virtually every facet of modern-day life.

How Did Wide-Area Networking Begin?

  • The first WAN was devised by the United States Air Force in the late 50s to interconnect sites in their SAGE radar defense system. A gigantic network of devoted land lines, phones, and modems connected the sites to one another.
  • The groundwork of the IP-based Internet initiated with the ARPANET, the first broad-area packet-based network with shared control and the first network to execute TCP/IP protocol suite.
  • ARPANET primarily inter-connected the UCLA, the SRI International, the UCSB, and the U of U.

What Is A WAN Router?

  • WAN routers, also called edge-routers or border-routers is an instrument that routes data-packets between WAN sites, providing an enterprise access to a carrier-network. Many WAN protocols have been created over time, Comprising of Packet over SONET/SDH (PoS), Multi-protocol Label Switching (MPLS), Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM), and Frame Relay.

What Is Software-Defined WAN (SD-WAN)?

  • Software-defined WANs (SD-WAN) are a method for making WAN structures easier to deploy, operate, and administer. It depends on virtualization, application-level guidelines and over-lay networks, and on-site SD-WAN equipment and software platforms.
  • SD-WAN heightens data-transfer capabilities across a WAN by transferring traffic to less expensive network connections to do the work of more-costly leased or MPLS lines.

What Is WAN Optimization?

  • Delays and bandwidth restrictions frequently cause performance complications in enterprise WANs. WAN optimizations use a multitude of methods, including de-duplication, compaction, protocol optimization, bandwidth management, and local caching. These methods enhance packet delivery and traffic control, in turn enabling network bandwidth to increase or decrease dynamically as required.
  • SD-WAN technologies and WAN optimization are able to be used apart or with each other. Many SD-WAN merchants are including WAN optimization features to their products.

Types Of WAN Technologies

  • Packet switching
  • TCP/IP protocol suite
  • Router
  • Overlay network
  • Packet over SONET/SDH (PoS)
  • Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS)
  • ATM
  • Frame Relay

 

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