What's the current state of WAN for companies?

I want to know what is the current state of WAN connectivities at big companies?

The Cisco NetAcad material talks about leased lines, ISDN, Frame Relay, and ATM. Besides them, there is Cable and DSL connection to the Internet that home users like me are familiar with. The Cisco NetAcad material says X.25 is old and almost no one use it anymore in the US.

So what goes on these days? Does a stay-home worker run a VPN client to connect to his workstation at work or his company's email server?

How does a company branch connects to another branch? Leased line? Through the Internet?

How does a Chase credit card transaction at a restaurant at Downtown New York reaches Chase?

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Comments

vanquish23

We have leased T1/T3 lines for out remote offices. VPN devices from our WAN provider for remote users.

networker050184

Usually these days business are going for ethernet handoffs with some flavor of MPLS service depending on number of sites and connectivity needs.

Remote users are usually going to have a VPN client of some kind on their laptop and connect to the companies network that way from home or the road.

Branches are mostly connected by MPLS service these days.

Credit card transactions work like anything else on the internet. The terminal connects securly back to a server of sorts over the internet and the transactions are processed.

TechGuy215

^ +1 for networker050184. Most businesses are indeed using MPLS services these days.

As far as remote users, a VPN client coming in through either a VPN Conentrator or an ASA. Also, Citirx is another popular method.

Credit Card transcations do traverse the internet and they are tunneled, typically VPN with IPSEC.

lsud00d

Other remote access options include terminal servers and Microsoft's Direct Access technology. DA is actually pretty cool, have been working with it recently!

workfrom925

TechGuy215 wrote: »

^ +1 for networker050184. Most businesses are indeed using MPLS services these days.

As far as remote users, a VPN client coming in through either a VPN Conentrator or an ASA. Also, Citirx is another popular method.

Credit Card transcations do traverse the internet and they are tunneled, typically VPN with IPSEC.

In which curriculum do you learn about MPLS? CCNP?

networker050184

To get deep into it you will need to go down the service provider track.

powmia

I've seen a lot more GRE than MPLS connected branches. Big ones are typically DMVPN deployments. Depends on the industry, I suppose.

Regarding WAN connectivity at big companies. Depends on how big, and how much of their business relies on IT. Some lease traditional circuits (though, those typically aren't FR or ATM anymore, just a PWE3 pseudowire, some use MPLS based services... but the Googles and Amazons are either leasing lambdas or fiber.

For the teleworkers, the two most common are IPSec or SSL VPNs. SSL is becoming more common. IPSec is still more prevalent, could be from a laptop or a small router.

WilyOne

workfrom925 wrote: »

Does a stay-home worker run a VPN client to connect to his workstation at work or his company's email server?

I use the Cisco AnyConnect VPN software client, which creates an SSL* tunnel with a VPN concentrator (Cisco ASA 5585).

Interestingly enough, the older version of the software client used IPSec. Not sure why they switched from IPSec to SSL.

theodoxa

I see alot of T1 lines [at major companies], including multiple bonded T1s (One business had 6 T1s connected to 2 routers). Don't know what protocols they're running though (PPP, Frame Relay, MPLS, Something Else) since I only installed the hardware (Router, UPS, and Dial-In Access Server) and connected the cables, while someone else Dialed in and configured it remotely.

For smaller companies, DSL or even Dial-Up [in some rare cases]. A few months back, I setup some new equipment for a small business that had just upgraded from Dial-Up to DSL. It was strange seeing a 56K Modem connected by a Serial cable after all these years.