specific organization (and thus usually only has one administrator).
In general, there are three things to remember about WANs:
Three Things to Remember about WANs
- 1. They operate using serial interfaces
- 2. They generally provide lower bandwidth compared to LANs
- 3. They provide full-time remote resources that are connected to local services
Generally speaking, we could stop there. But we can further classify network designs even further with MANs and CANs.
What are MANs and CANs?
A MAN is short for metropolitan area network. As the name implies, it covers a metropolitan area- such as a city or the suburbs of a city. You can think of them as between what a LAN and WAN would be. They span a much larger geographical area than LANs, but do not often surpass the limits of a metropolitan area.
MANs are generally good for businesses and organizations that have multiple locations around a city. A bank may also take advantage of a MAN.
So, far so good, right? Well now we’ll introduce the CAN- the campus area network. You’ve probably guessed it- this type of network design spans a university or campus. It acts a lot like a MAN would in some cases, although it obviously has a much more specific purpose.
Thus far the deciding factor on how we classify network designs has been the area they cover. The black sheep of this convention is the SAN: noted (and named) for its functionality- not its coverage area.
What is a SAN?
A SAN stands for a storage-area network. It is a dedicated and high performance network that moves data between servers or other resources. The SAN is used to connect storage machines in a “farm” so that other parts of the network can take advantage of the storage space. You will commonly see a SAN connected to a LAN or WAN. In the below example, we are using the SAN to store information the web and email servers may need.
If you ever decide to start your own Fortune 500 business, your network will need to be very large in size. To help alleviate the strain on your network and stress from lack of disk space, a SAN will be all but necessary. Most SANs offer great disaster tolerance and scalability built in- something vital for keeping important company documents.
Other Types of Networks
Although you’d think we’ve just about covered it all, we can delve even deeper into network design. You may have heard of a WLAN, or a wireless local area network (which operates much like a LAN without cables). You might have also heard of a PAN- or a personal area network. These are usually used to describe small networks made between mobile devices such as phones. In the below example, you can see two devices connecting wirelessly- by Bluetooth, perhaps.
Although you can be as specific as you’d like, most networking exams only require you know the basics of LANs, WANs, MANs, and SANs. This may change in the future, so be sure to keep an open mind about the upcoming network designs. We did, after all, only start networking computers with simple LANs. Just years after, we have the many “AN”s that we just covered- and there’s no telling what we’ll have in the years to come.