Setting up a WAN

Hi Y'all,

I am currently trying to teach myself about LAN's and WAN's. So far I have been able to create and establish 3 LAN's in 3 different cities (my house, my mum's and my brother's). I now want to link the 3 LAN's - someone mentioned that I would need to setup a WAN which would consist of the 3 LAN's, am I being advised correctly?

I know a bit about WAN's (very newbie to this) and don't understand the concepts fully. Security is a very big issue for me as there will be a lot of private and confidential information being passed to and fro.

Could someone advise me on the concepts of setting up a WAN, software / hardware needed, configuring settings, etc

Thanks in advance

Sarah

Sarah,

If you're familiar with LAN architechture, then you're half way there. As you probably know, a Wide Area Network is, in most cases, just a collection of LANs.

Basically, you'll need 3 routers and you'll need to know how to configure them (firewalls, DNS, etc.) I'd buy 3 identical routers so you don't have to learn how to configure three different boxes.

Are your existing LANs peer-to-peer networks or do you have a dedicated server on each of the LANs? What OS's are you running? Also, what are you going to use to connect the LANs? ADSL (broadband)? 56k modems?

There's an excellent 'tutorial' on Marconi's website, which I highly recommend you read - although it's a little too 'technical' in some areas for a casual read.

http://www.marconi.com/html/educati...edwantheory.htm


Nao

Hi Sarah,

First, let me know, what kind of carrier available in your area so that I could guide you further.
(Carrier will be used to interconnect aforesaid three LANs together, like ADSL (broadband) or 56k modems via PSTN).

You can write me directly on: URL

Best Regards,

Vijay
MCP, MCSE, MCDBA, CCNA 2.0