What is a wide area network?
Otherwise known as a WAN, a wide area network is an important form of internet technology that is designed to connect a range of devices, systems, and people over large geographical areas. WAN services offer many tangible benefits for modern businesses, including the ability to easily share information quickly and securely in multiple areas across the globe.
In this blog, we’ll explore the key fundamentals of wide area networks and assess their advantages and real-world applications, helping you understand why these connectivity solutions are so important in the modern business world.
If you’d like more information about how our managed WAN services work, our expert team will be happy to help – please get in touch to find out more.
Wide Area Networks: Explained
If you’ve found yourself wondering, ‘what does WAN stand for?’, it’s simply the abbreviation for wide area network. A wide area network is a form of network technology that spans across large geographical areas. WANs usually connect a range of smaller networks, such as local area networks (LANs) or metropolitan area networks (MANs).
However, LANs are often confined to a single location like an office or a home. In contrast, WANs enable communication and data sharing between users and systems located across multiple cities, countries, or continents, offering greater connectivity for your organisation.
Wide area networks rely primarily on telecommunications infrastructure to transmit their data, including things like satellites, fibre optic broadband cables, and mobile networks. This makes a WAN ideal for companies reliant on seamless global operations, remote offices, and employees working from different locations. In fact, the internet itself could be considered to be the largest example of a WAN, connecting millions of smaller networks around the globe.
Understanding what a WAN is and how it works is the first step towards grasping its significance in global communication, enabling modern businesses, governments, and individuals to stay connected – regardless of their location.
How Does a WAN Work?
Typically, wide area networks function by linking a range of smaller networks together, using a variety of innovative technologies and protocols.
WANs usually utilise the following connectivity solutions:
- Dedicated leased lines: Dedicated leased lines provide a private, high-speed connection between different locations, usually with high SLAs (service level agreements).
- Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS): MPLS is a method that directs data efficiently through a network, able to speed up and manage network traffic quickly and efficiently.
- Virtual Private Networks (VPNs): VPNs (Virtual Private Networks) are used to create secure, encrypted connections over public internet infrastructure, protecting your privacy.
- Software-Defined WAN (SD-WAN): SD-WANs are a form of advanced WAN technology that uses software to intelligently manage WAN traffic. Find out more about our managed SD-WAN services here.
When using a WAN, all data is transmitted in packets across the network, travelling through routers, switches, and any other devices used until it reaches its destination. WANs are known for being particularly resilient (even if hardware failures occur), ensuring that your data can always be rerouted through alternate paths, and maintaining connectivity throughout the entire network.
The Advantages and Disadvantages of Wide Area Networks
Now you should have a greater understanding of what a wide area network is, which may help make the decision process easier for you. However, if you’re still not sure whether a WAN is right for your organisation, it may be worthwhile to go through the main advantages and disadvantages of these networks to ensure you get the best solution for your business needs.
Let’s take a look at some of the main advantages and disadvantages of WANs.
The Key Benefits of WANs
WANs have remained popular since their inception, offering numerous benefits that make them essential for modern businesses and organisations:
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- Seamless global connectivity: WANs are essential for enabling seamless communication across the globe, allowing numerous systems, offices and teams to connect with each other across multiple locations. This means that businesses can operate much more efficiently, regardless of where they’re based.
- Centralised data management and resource sharing: When using a WAN, your network can be managed from a central location, making maintenance and cyber security much easier. Resources such as servers and applications can also be shared across multiple locations, simplifying collaborative tasks.
- Scalability and flexibility: WANs are both flexible and scalable, easily adapting to your company’s growth in real-time. New locations and users can also be connected without having to make significant infrastructure changes, enabling consistent communication and a high network performance.
- A cost-effective solution: WANs often use cloud computing services and optimised technologies, which means there is less of a need for expensive physical infrastructure and hardware. This makes a WAN a practical solution for businesses of all sizes.
- Innovative security features: Another major benefit of using a WAN is that it usually comes with a selection of high-security measures and features (like managed firewalls and encryption), protecting sensitive data at all times.
As you can see, WAN technology can be extremely beneficial to your business, regardless of its size.
Understanding the Challenges Associated with WANs
Whilst WANs clearly offer many benefits for modern organisations, there are some drawbacks that you need to consider before implementing a new wide area network into your business plan.
Some of the main challenges associated with WANs are:
- High infrastructure costs: Setting up and maintaining a WAN can be expensive – particularly if you use a WAN with advanced features like SD-WAN. Specialised hardware may also be required to correctly implement your choice of WAN solution.
- Potential security risks: Whilst WANs do come primed with cutting-edge security features, they can also be prone to cyber security threats, due to the number of connections in use at any given time.
- Network complexity: Managing a WAN can be difficult, often requiring specialised skills due to their complexity. This is particularly true for larger networks that utilise fibre broadband, the cloud and MPLS IPVPN services.
- Latency and performance issues: Transmitting lots of data over long distances can sometimes result in delays, impacting performance and leading to latency. Video conferencing and VoIP calls may be affected by slow connections.
Whilst these challenges can cause issues for your business, investing in advanced technologies and skilled personnel can help you reduce the risk of problems arising, alongside regular monitoring.
How Are WANs Used in Everyday Life?
WANs are an integral factor in various industries, enabling global business operations to flourish. WANs have many applications, but they’re often used within the following industries:
- Healthcare: WANs are often used within the healthcare world to connect multiple hospital locations, share patient data securely, and facilitate telemedicine platforms.
- Education: Universities and schools in the education sector rely on WANs for centralised learning materials, including online learning platforms and resource sharing.
- Retail: WANs are used by retail chains to manage inventory, process transactions, and monitor business operations across their stores. WANs can also be used to monitor the supply chain, offering real-time tracking for orders.
- Finance: Financial institutions like banks and building societies rely on WANs for real-time transactions and secure internet access around the world.
- Government: WANs are also extremely useful for global governments, supporting seamless communications and data sharing, no matter the distance.
These examples highlight just how important WANs are in supporting a variety of industries and applications across the globe.
Wide Area Networks: The Backbone of the Modern World
Wide area networks play a major part in modern connectivity, giving both individuals and businesses the opportunity to communicate with each other across large distances. Hopefully, by now, you should have a greater idea of what a wide area network is and why they’re so important, giving you the knowledge needed to source the best WAN solution for your business needs.
Regardless of the size of your organisation, WANs are the backbone of the modern world, enabling businesses to scale effectively as needed. Whilst there may be some challenges that need to be overcome, the benefits far outweigh the drawbacks, offering a flexible solution for both global enterprises and small businesses.
At M247, we’re experts in the world of connectivity, offering a vast range of internet services and solutions. Two of our main WAN solutions are our managed MPLS IPVPN and managed SD-WAN offerings, with each option having its own set of advantages.
If you’d like to see how we can help your business, our expert team will be happy to help – please get in touch with us here.
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