A WAN (Wide Area Network) is a data communication network that covers a broad geographic area. The term WAN applies to the broader telecommunication infrastructure. Router is the main communication device in the WAN networks.
How WAN Works?
A WAN is a network of interconnected devices such as router, switches, modems, wireless devices, DSL services, frame relay devices, access servers, ISDN terminal adapters, DSU devices and WAN switches. The most common WAN circuits are packet switching, circuit switching and point to point communication. In WAN routing the routing table contains the IP addresses of the source and destination devices. On the basis of the routing table, the router chooses the best possible shortest path for the packets.
A point to point link is also known as a leased line and which provides the communication between two remote locations through a carrier network such as Telecommunication Company. In circuit switching a carrier network is involved in establishing, maintaining and terminating communication session. In packet switching, the communication devices share point to point link to transfer packets from the source and destination. Dial-up services provide cost effective solutions for WAN connectivity.
WAN Technologies
The WAN technologies operate at the lowest level of the OSI layer model.
ATM
ATM or Asynchronous Transfer Mode is a high bandwidth and high speed wide area network technology that operates at the speed of 155Mbps. ATM is also called cell relay and it supports multiple data types such as data, voice, video etc. ATM uses fixed sized packets for data communication that are also known as packets.
Dial UP
Dial up WAN provide the cost effective communication solutions. Dial up demand and dial up backup is the two WAN dial up services. In a DDR, a router dynamically initiates a call on a switched circuit when it requires sending data.
In dial backup, switched circuit is used to provide the backup services for other types of networks such as PPP or packet switching.
X.25
X.25 is a data communication protocol in the packet switched networks. X.25 allows computers at the remote locations to communicate with each other through a centralized computer.
Frame Relay
Frame relay is a very high speed and high performance WAN protocol. Frame relay operates at the physical and data link layers of the OSI model. Frame relay is a networking method that is designed for the data transmission between LAN and WAN.
ISDN Lines
Integrated Services Digital Network is a WAN communication method over the regular telephone lines.
Circuit Switching
In WAN, when a router has data for the remote site the switched circuit is initiated. When two remote networks communicate and authenticate then the communication starts. ISDN is the best example of the circuit switching network.
Packet Switching
In packet switching the common carrier resources are shared between the remote networks. ATM, Frame Relay and X.25 are the examples of the packet switched networks. In this technology, the network has connections into the carrier networks and some portion of the carrier network is shared.
CSU/DSU
Channel Circuit Unit/Digital Circuit Unit is a device that is used to connect a router with the digital circuit like T1.
WAN Routing
WAN routing is a technique of forwarding the packets towards the destination based on the IP address of the next hop.