Choosing Your WAN

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Enterprise IT departments are accustomed to reassessing their WAN strategies as their business goals change and as new WAN options emerge. Distinguishing between the subtleties of the abundant service choices can be challenging. For example, if a brand-new service hits the industry, does that mean it is an automatic fit for your organization? Not necessarily, though conscientious IT departments should keep an eye on the latest capabilities to continue to match the most appropriate offerings and pricing models to their individual requirements.

In general, no one size fits all enterprise-wide WANs. To help clarify the technical and practical differences among service technology options, this paper explains the differences among various Layer 1, Layer 2 and Layer 3 services, such as private lines, frame relay, ATM, Ethernet and IP VPN services. It also offers general decision criteria about when and where to appropriately apply each option.