You can think of a wide area network as a connected system comprising local area networks. Remember that these are the one-campus setups with all offices wired together. If you have several local area networks located in two or more cities, then to cover these distances your business needs to have a leased line between each area.
A service provider must provide a dedicated connection and offer security through a virtual private network. At the end of each connection point, your business can have a router to allow the local area network to communicate with a hub handling outgoing and incoming data from the wide-area network. With portions of information moving back and forth, it means you have a wide area network. This article discusses how a wide-area network can help your business.
Understanding wide area network
As explained earlier, a fast wide area network differs from a local area network. Traditionally, a business would make a local area network in its office. It would do this by connecting several computers to internal networks, usually by putting Ethernet cables in a network jack nearby leading to the data center in the building.
Keep in mind that a wide area network can exist in several locations. Many businesses utilize wide area networks to connect multiple locations that can be far away from each other to private corporate networks. A wide area network can also be public. You should note that the internet is a wide area network that all people can access regardless of location.
It’s a good idea to talk to your security team about the wide area network from the onset so that you can choose the most secure wide area network solution. For instance, you can choose software-defined wide area networks that provide enhanced security measures. You also need to properly address security concerns when you decide to implement a wide area network.
The benefits of having a wide area network
A wide area network solution is crucial for business communications as it can solve for high-speed connectivity while maintaining costs at scale. Without wide area network solutions, businesses with several locations in different cities may need to have and install hardware between the cities to connect their local area networks. Instead, wide area networks tend to take a less costly approach by leveraging public systems to connect parts of the business across large distances.
Besides the cost issue, wide area networks provide several options to your business, especially if you want to improve the time for your employees regardless of their location. The chance to work remotely while having secure access to business network assets is a huge benefit for your business.
Simply put, wide area networks can allow your business to increase network connectivity over a large geographical area. Also, wide area networks provide faster internal network speeds as well as offer IT centralized administrative control over your company’s network. They can utilize this to improve network performance. For example, you can decide to implement quality of service settings to have high-quality voice and video communication.
