MANs and WANs of Internet Networking
You have just finished wiring up your local area network and are pretty happy with yourself for working out the kinks in your system. You principal in the United States calls and suggests that it would really be useful if his network could communicate with yours. Can this be done? Given today’s high-speed telecommunications facilities, the answer is definitely yes.
The linking of geographically distant networks into metropolitan-area networks (MANs) or wide-area networks (WANs) is a growing phenomenon. Industry analysts say this is the next logical step in the evolution of networking, as organizations seek to interconnect not only departmental LANs within the same area, but remotely located networks into a single, corporate network.
The caveat to this interconnected future, however, is the steep price. Figure telecommunications costs, which re non-existent in a simple LAN setup. Whether your data goes through leased lines or is bounced off a satellite, you will have to pay these charges. That is just the beginning – you also have to pay in terms of added complexity and more hardware.
Linking two or more networks is a complicated affair, particularly if they are different kinds of networks, and the specialized knowledge required is not easily accessible to laymen.
Among terms you are likely to come across are repeaters, bridges, bridge/routers or “brouters,†routers, and gateways. These are the hardware components that make internetworking possible.
• Repeaters are amplifiers that extend the distance a signal can be driven within a single network
• Bridges allow similar networks to communicate with each other by doing a minimal amount of “translation†between them.
• Routers and gateways are more complex devices that allow dissimilar networks to communicate with each other through more extensive protocol translation.
Remember that these are simplified definitions. An engineer with time on his hands will be able to give you a more detailed picture.
Before jumping into internetworking, bear in mind that it is a fairly young field; the technology is still evolving. It will be easier to make mistakes – expensive ones – at this stage of the game.
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