WAN-as-a-Service
vs.
LAN-as-a-Service

Local Area Networks (LANs) and Wide Area Networks (WANs) are critical business enablers as part of a Network-as-a-Service (NaaS) infrastructure, but whether LAN-as-a-Service or WAN-as-a-Service is best for your organization depends on several factors.

Your LAN is exclusive to your organization. Your devices, including computers and smartphones, are networked together at a specific location via TCP/IP Ethernet or Wi-Fi. LAN-as-a-Service is a networking business model that integrates LAN with ever-evolving business needs, so you can scale your capabilities up or down as required. WAN-as-a-Service is the same consumption model, but a WAN spans a large geographic area and multiple business locations by using leased circuits from telecommunications providers.

NaaS is a delivery model for networking products with offerings that can deliver network functionality as a service, including self-service capability, on-demand usage and the ability to scale up and down. NaaS offerings may also include elements such as network switches, routers, gateways and firewalls. Gartner predicts that by the end of 2024, on-premises NaaS will be adopted by 15% of all enterprises¹.

Whether you're a smaller business or a multinational company, it's a great idea to understand where LAN-as-a-Service and WAN-as-a-Service fit into your NaaS IT infrastructure.

Any business today needs to be digitally interconnected to carry out operations and be competitive, especially if they have remote employees or multiple locations. Because today's businesses tend to be more distributed or remote, the need for a WAN rather than just a LAN is increasingly common.

A business that operates out of a home or a small, leased space may have a couple of computers, a printer and a router/modem combination linked together with physical or Wi-Fi connectivity; this is a LAN. Meanwhile, a WAN can accommodate a growing organization as bandwidth demands rise to handle more types of files more quickly and securely across greater distances by tying local systems together. A WAN exceeds a LAN's capabilities in that it can connect all users to company-wide databases and tools that facilitate conferencing, marketing automation, customer relationship management (CRM) and other business operations—all of which are beyond the LAN's scope.

Both LANs and WANs are keeping pace with other applications and services, as they can now be delivered "as-a-Service" as part of a larger NaaS IT infrastructure.

Because of the geographic limitations, LAN-as-a-Service is relatively simpler than a WAN when it comes to connectivity requirements. However, managing a LAN requires significant time and resources from your IT staff, and the larger the organization and the more complex your on-site IT infrastructure, the more complex and expensive the tools become to manage a LAN. Adopting LAN-as-a-Service can help you maintain operations and avoid service disruptions that can impede the business and impact the customer experience.

WAN-as-a-Service is more dynamic. It employs a wider variety of connectivity and both wired and wireless technologies to bridge their various parts—including virtual private networks (VPNs) for added security since data becomes more vulnerable as it moves across the internet. The prospect of building a WAN from scratch can be overwhelming, especially if the business has limited budgets, people and technology resources. For example, a WAN has more customer-premises equipment (CPE) to connect with a telecommunication carrier and terminate a WAN circuit, such as an ISDN, E-carrier/T-carrier, DSL or metro Ethernet. This also includes hardware such as routers, firewalls, network switches, PBXs, VoIP gateways, sometimes CSU/DSU and modems.

The value of WAN-as-a-Service is that businesses don't have to worry about maintaining their own infrastructure, which can become more complex as the infrastructure grows and technologies are layered on. An organization doesn't have to be large to enjoy the benefits of WAN-as-a-Service. Because of the nature of its operations and distributed employees, LAN-as-a-Service may not be sufficient to keep up, as smartphones, desktops in home offices, laptops and tablets will come and go and need to be set up or reconfigured. Even smaller businesses have become dependent on cloud-based applications to deliver their services. Deciding which one makes sense for your business should be based on how and where you want your staff to connect and collaborate.

For a performance perspective, WAN-as-a-Service allows for dedicated internet connectivity and even advanced traffic management features to better prioritize or route traffic by leveraging software smarts, while your LAN will likely be limited by a public broadband connection.