Building Smarter WAN Connectivity: An Introduction to WAN Link Management and Its Benefits for IT Decision Makers

The relentless pressure to reduce costs, increase network performance, improve productivity, and meet regulatory requirements and business continuity needs are a constant battle for the information technology and telecommunications groups of any organizations. With the Layer-2 link balancing technologies that have entered the market place in the past few years, these objectives now can be met and exceeded, while reducing the complexity of telecommunications infrastructures. Wide Area Networks (WANs) can now enjoy the same levels of performance and reliability as Local Area Networks (LANs). This paper explores how organizations can benefit from Layer-2 link management and its applications to build smarter WAN implementations.