1.3 Identifying Site Requirements and Solutions
1.3.1 WAN considerations
Considerations vary, depending on the requirements of various company sites. This section discusses the WAN considerations that a network administrator must evaluate for a central site, a branch office, and a telecommuter site.

A company may have multiple sites that vary in size, as shown in the Figure. A remote network is necessary to connect the various locations in a company. Typical site locations include the following:

  • Central site -- The central site is a large company site that is often the corporate headquarters or a major office. This is the site that most other regional offices and telecommuters connect into for data and information. Because users may access this site via multiple WAN technologies, it is important that your central site be designed to accommodate many different types of WAN connections coming in from remote locations. The central site is often termed headquarters, the enterprise, or corporate.
  • Remote site (branch office) -- The remote site is a smaller office that generally houses employees who have a compelling reason to be located in a specific region. A remote site is generally established to give a company local regional presence. A typical employee at a remote site may be a regional salesperson. Remote-site users must be able to connect to the company site to access company information. Remote sites are sometimes termed branch offices, remote office/branch offices (ROBOs), or sales offices.
  • Telecommuter site -- The telecommuter site is a small office with one to a few employees. It can also be a telecommuter’s home office. Telecommuters may also be mobile users who travel. Depending on the amount of use and the WAN services available, telecommuters tend to use dialup services. Other terms that refer to a telecommuter site are small office, home office, and small office/home office (SOHO). Mobile users are specific telecommuters who do not work at a fixed company site. Because their locations vary, mobile users tend to access the company network via an asynchronous dialup connection through the telephone company.

The WAN requirements may be different at each site, depending on the needs of the users at the sites.