Multiple WAN network question

[trauts14]

If a company has 500 computers that all use the internet, how many WAN connections would they need from the ISP? And most importantly, how does a company configure multiple WAN networks? I have seen routers with 2 WAN ports, but what if you have multiple WAN networks?

Physically, how do to bring in so many WAN lines into a building? Fiber Optic? T3's?

what type of line from the ISP would a big company use to power e.g. 500 computers all using internet?

 

[jdabbs]

Companies aren't buying cable modems by the dozen, and data-only PRIs have largely been supplanted by metro ethernet.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metro_ethernet

I'd imagine a single-site company that size would rely on 1-2+ ISPs for connectivity. How much business would the company lose from an Internet outage? The importance of redundancy is often a deciding factor in how many ISPs a company site uses. One pair of fiber per connection is common, though some it's possible several ISPs may share the same bundle of fiber to get to the customer.

Each ISP would provide the company with a group of public IP addresses. The company uses these public IPs to interact with the Internet on behalf of the company's private IPs via Network Address Translation. One public IP can conceal many private IPs, so there doesn't have to be an one-to-one relationship.

 

[thiggins]

There is no one answer to this. All depends on the network design.

Enterprises use many techniques to move the large amounts of data they need. Multi-WAN routers, WAN optimization, etc.

Big data calls for big pipes, usually fiber on DS or OC connections.