Today Ara Rubyan, the editor of Network Tips Newsletter, is going to
show us how we can set up a Wide Area Network for our company.
As always, if you have any articles or stories that you would like
to share, send them to me and I will try to include them in an issue
of NetworkNewz.
Patrick Stoddard
NetworkNewz Editor
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Recently I received this email:
"Dear Ara,
"I have been asked to tell an audience how you would set up a wide
area network (WAN). We have a head Office and 6 district Offices so I
need to know the components I would need and how they would be
connected. We need an inexpensive solution. We will probably use some
sort of phone line."
Gerry
"P.S. It has to be in the simplest of descriptions."
Gerry,
These days, a digital subscriber line (DSL) is a popular way of
supplying a high-speed connection. It can provide you with up to 1.5
million bits of information per second. For reference sake, the
average modem these days is rated at up to 56 thousand bits of
information per second under ideal conditions.
You can think of this flow of information like the flow of water in a
big pipe. All of your computers can share in that flow. So you can
probably expect a great improvement with DSL versus a simple modem;
plus it is widely available.
Contact your local phone company and inquire about their DSL options
as well as their Internet Service Provider (ISP) options. DSL service
costs vary from city to city but are in the $100-$400/month range.
You can also choose different speeds of DSL -- "slow" DSL (which has
about 1/4 the capacity of regular DSL) can be had for about $200 per
month.
OK, so that deals with the issue of simple high-speed access into the
building. Where do you go from there?
In other words, what do you connect your DSL line to?
You're going to want to set up a router at each office. A router is a
computer that has two connections, one for your office network and
another for your DSL feed.
So, your router is holding hands with you AND with the Internet. And
here's what happens next.
When a computer on your network wants to send or receive information
to or from a computer AT ANOTHER LOCATION (whether it is one of your
offices or not), it has to know the address of that destination
computer. So the sending computer puts its own address on the
message. It also puts the destination address on that message. It is
similar to you addressing a letter with two addresses--your return
address and the final destination's address.
But what to do with it now?
Well, if you were going to send a letter you'd put it in the nearest
mailbox, right? Then a mail truck would transport that letter to the
nearest local post office. Then it would get sorted and sent
to a local post office near the destination. It then would be put on
a truck that would deliver it directly to where you wanted it to end
up.
