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Wide Area Network Setup

A WAN (wide area network) is a communications network that spans a large geographic area such as across cities, states, or countries. They can be private to connect parts of a business or they can be more public to connect smaller networks together.


The easiest way to understand what a WAN is to think of the internet as a whole, which is the world's largest WAN. The internet is a WAN because, through the use of ISPs, it connects lots of smaller local area networks (LANs) or metro area networks (MANs).


On a smaller scale, a business may have a WAN that's comprised of cloud services, its headquarters, and smaller branch offices. The WAN, in this case, would be used to connect all of those sections of the business together.


No matter what the WAN joins together or how far apart the networks are, the end result is always intended to allow different smaller networks from different locations to communicate with one another.


How WANs Are Connected

Since WANs, by definition, cover a larger distance than LANs, it makes sense to connect the various parts of the WAN using a virtual private network (VPN). This provides protected communications between sites, which is necessary given that the data transfers are happening over the internet.


Although VPNs provide reasonable levels of security for business uses, a public internet connection does not always provide the predictable levels of performance that a dedicated WAN link can.


This is why fiber optic cables are sometimes used to facilitate communication between the WAN links.