Wide Area Networks - Free Sample on Issues Protocols & Hardware

Question: Give a brief description of a WAN, ownership issues, protocols and hardware used in WAN and security issues? Answer: Introduction The aim of this paper is to present information about Wide Area Networks of WANs. WANs are widely used by larger organizations that span over more than one business units at different geographical locations. A WAN is a computer network or a communication network that is mostly established over some leased line telecommunication circuit. A WAN can be rented from an internet service provider or may be owned privately by a company. A business that owns a WAN faces several issues and considerations related to ownership of the networking infrastructure, the functionality of the network, security issues and considerations related to hardware and protocol used in the WAN infrastructure (Kenneth C. Mansfield Antonakos, 2011). Brief Description of a WAN A transmission medium is a physical medium through which data is transmitted from sender to receiver. There are different types of transmission medium used in a network. For example, coaxial cables, fiber optic cables and wireless communication media and so on. WAN spans larger geographical coverage over more than thousands of kilometers. A WAN can be spanned over a nation or worldwide. Data transmission rate in a WAN ranges from 1000 bps to more than 1Mbps. At the same time, as WAN covers larger networks, the data transmission error rate for WAN is also very high compared to LANs. Typically, the data transmission error rate in WAN ranges from 10-5 to 10-7 (Nikolik, 2012). WAN is a physically distrusted network over a larger geographic span. Hence, it is not possible to use only wired transmission media for developing a WAN. So, in most of the WANs, the communication links are created by mixing wired and wireless transmission media. Hence, the communication links tend to be slower than LANs and are more unreliable in nature. In WANs, typically wireless communication channels like satellite channels, microwave links, and telephone links are used (Ciccarelli, et al., 2012). Ownership Issues A LAN is an internal network of an organization and it will be owned by the organization. A WAN is typically developed by the individual LANs at different business units of an organization at different geographical locations. Even, a WAN may connect LANs owned by different organizations. So, clearly, there will be ownership issues related to transmission media of the WAN. The issue becomes more critical when the WAN connects LANs from multiple organizations (Nikolik, 2012). Ownership of a WAN is different. It does not follow either public or private ownership. Rather, a WAN will always have some mixed ownership. An enterprise can own a LAN or multiple LANs. These LANs are used completely for the business purpose of the enterprise. So, it is difficult to decide ownership of a WAN. It uses third party systems for connecting the LANs over the Internet. Those systems are not owned by the business. But those are dedicated for the use for the business. For example, a leased line. The physical setup and hardware used for developing the leased line is not done by the business. They are just renting' the service from the service provider. However, the business can make investments on improving the performance of the communication channel and can make it more secure. In that case, the investments and systems purchased and installed by the company will be under the ownership of the company. In some cases, a company even own a leased line. But that will be a costly solution (Kizza, 2015). There is another possible setup for a WAN. There are many businesses that just connects the organizational LANs to the Internet and use additional technologies like Virtual Private Network or VPN. In such cases, the company will have no ownership of any network infrastructure other than the LANs of their own business units. Protocols and Hardware Used in WAN Usually, ISPs build WANs for businesses. Sometimes enterprises develop their own WAN. In any case, a WAN is developed on leased lines. Two end points of a leased line will have two routers. The routers will connect the LANs of each side with the leased line. Such setup requires very expensive hardware. Other than leased lines, a WAN can be developed on the Internet using packet switching or circuit switching technique. Typical hardware for WANs includes satellite communication links, fiber optic channels and so on. In a case of a circuit switching based WAN, it will have telephone lines. Other WANs may have radio wave transmissions, fiber optic channels. Various other technologies and hardware such as 4G, Cable broadband, ADSL are also used in implementing a WAN (FitzGerald Dennis, 2011). WANs use protocols from the TCP/IP protocol suit for delivering data over the network and for implementing addressing scheme for WANs. Some of the widely used protocols in packet switching based WANs are, (Kenneth C. Mansfield Antonakos, 2011) SONET/SDH ATM Frame Relay MPLS Security Issues Some of the most important security risks related to WAN and enterprise applications are, Data breach and unauthorized access to a private network of an enterprise. In most of the cases, businesses do no give much focus and attention to the WAN infrastructure. One of the possible reason may be the partial ownership issue and lack of understanding about WAN and how to make it secure. And organizations fail to meet the regulatory compliances of a security WAN and skip the information security audit for WANs. As a result, there remain security loopholes into the WAN infrastructure. As a result, attackers exploits those vulnerabilities and enters into the network (Kenneth C. Mansfield Antonakos, 2011). Another issue is malware and spyware. WANs is a common target for malware attacks and malware propagate through WANs more frequently. If there are vulnerabilities in the connected LANs connected to an infected WAN, then it will not take much time for the malware to break into the LANs. This threat is so dangerous, that, even a single visit to a malware infected web page, from a vulnerable WAN, is enough for an advanced a sophisticated malware to enter into the WAN (Kizza, 2015). Conclusion In this report, different aspects of WAN and challenges related to the implementation of WAN have been explored through comparison of WAN technologies and infrastructures with LAN and MAN. References Ciccarelli, P., Faulkner, C., FitzGerald, J., Dennis, A., Groth, D., Skandier, T. (2012). Introduction to Networking Basics. John Wiley Sons. FitzGerald, J., Dennis, A. (2011). Business Data Communications and Networking. John Wiley Sons. Kenneth C. Mansfield, J., Antonakos, J. L. (2011). Computer Networking for LANS to WANS: Hardware, Software and Security. Cengage Learning. Kizza, J. M. (2015). Guide to Computer Network Security. Springer. Nikolik, D. (2012). A Managers Primer on e-Networking. Springer.