Wide Area Networking (WAN) is the communications network that connects the local area network (LAN), in our case the campus network, to the outside world reaching a very large geographic area.

Key Features

The Clemson University LAN is connected to (or peers with) multiple other networks in various regional geographical locations with the goal of transporting data and communications around the world quickly and efficiently.  Clemson peers with several commodity, or commercial, internet service providers (ISP) in addition to a national research and education (R&E) network called Internet2.  Peering with multiple providers is an industry standard to ensure redundancy and business continuity in the event of a network outage for one or more ISPs.  R&E networks were constructed to serve the R&E community on a member-only access policy to allow the faster and presumably more secure exchange of data between members over the network.  Currently, Clemson’s WAN peering locations include:  Atlanta, GA, Charlotte, NC, Anderson, SC, and Clemson, SC.  Clemson’s commodity peers include: CenturyLink, Hurricane Electric, and Charter Communications.  Clemson has two Internet2 peering points, one in Atlanta, GA and the other in Charlotte, NC.  Total WAN bandwidth is currently 110 Gb/s to Atlanta and 10Gb/s to Charlotte.  Clemson’s facilities-based fiber network that runs between Atlanta, GA, Clemson, SC, Greenville, SC, and Charlotte, NC, called C-Light, has the capability to increase this bandwidth in either direction as needed by the Clemson University users.

Getting Started

Find out more about Internet2 at http://www.internet2.edu/