Routers and WANs: A Match Made in Heaven
Routers and WAN links have the same general goals, so they are
often used together. Routers are designed to forward IP packets between
different subnets, whether those subnets are near to each other or far apart.
WAN links are designed to forward bits to remote sites. It's only natural that
routers would use WAN links when they need to forward IP packets to a subnet at
a remote site.
End user devices at a company's office site typically use an
Ethernet NIC; they never directly connect to a WAN link. To send traffic to an
IP host at another site, end user devices send the data to a router. The router
forwards the IP packet to another router at the other site, which then forwards
the packet to the other IP host. Sound familiar? Yep, that's IP routing.
The best way to understand how WAN links are used is to review
routing. Figure 14-5 shows a network
diagram that includes some familiar details from the coverage of IP routing in
Chapter 11, "Knowing Where to Turn at
Each Intersection (Router)," as well as the same WAN link discussed in the first
part of this chapter.
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