| 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.
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