Designing a Wide Area Network (WAN)
High demand for networking technology and access to remote resources, are just two of the challanges facing network designers of Wide Area Networks (WANs). Using a common-sense approach to networking technologies, Symtrex can help you design and develop a systems that best fits your business needs and budget.
Through careful planning and design, our consultants can provide expert advice on the fundamental steps involved in establishing a WAN. It is important to be aware of the different data communication services, networking technologies, protocols and equipment in the design stage of your WAN. Some points you may want to consider are as follows:
1. What are your networking requirements:
- Define the applications to be used
- Consider the technical support required for these applications
2. Be aware of, and understand, the range of data communication circuits available on the market
- What are the advantages and disadvantages of the individual products?
- How cost effective are they?
- What circuit will best fit your business needs and budget?
3. Know and understand WAN protocol - its purpose and operation.
- It is important that all users of a WAN conform to the same network protocols.
When you start designing your WAN, the biggest question will be what kind of data communications should be used to obtain the highest bandwidth. So what should you use?
The first and most commonly known is ISDN, an Integrated Services Digital Network, which basically uses a single phone line to transmit voice, data, imaging and video simultaneously. Most corporations have found this to best serve the best price performance issue.
The next type of technology is referred to as packet switching, where a network routes a packet of data between destinations using a variety of routes to avoid overload of a single facility packet. The path is temporary, and as such allows sharing by many users. There are two types: Frame Relay and Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM). The basic difference between the two is that Frame Relay supports the transmission of variable length packets across the digital network and ATM is a fixed length packet.
Back to Home Page