campus network
{{Short description|Computer network linking smaller networks on a campus}}
{{for|the term for a group of school campuses|University system}}
{{Area networks}}
A campus network, campus area network, corporate area network or CAN is a computer network made up of an interconnection of local area networks (LANs) within a limited geographical area.Edwards, Wade. CCNP Complete Study Guide (642-801, 642-811, 642-821, 642-831). Sybex. © 2005Long, Cormac. IP Network Design. McGraw-Hill/Osborne. © 2001. The networking equipments (switches, routers) and transmission media (optical fiber, copper plant, Cat5 cabling etc.) are almost entirely owned by the campus tenant / owner: an enterprise, university, government etc.{{cite book |author=Gary A. Donahue |title=Network Warrior |publisher=O'Reilly |date=June 2007 |page=5}} A campus area network is larger than a local area network but smaller than a metropolitan area network (MAN) or wide area network (WAN).
University campuses
College or university campus area networks often interconnect a variety of buildings, including administrative buildings, academic buildings, laboratories, university libraries, or student centers, residence halls, gymnasiums, and other outlying structures, like conference centers, technology centers, and training institutes.
Early examples include the Stanford University Network at Stanford University,{{cite web |title= Network (SUNet — The Stanford University Network) |date= July 16, 2010 |publisher= Stanford University Information Technology Services |url= http://itservices.stanford.edu/service/network |accessdate= May 4, 2011 |archive-date= December 11, 2015 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20151211022334/https://itservices.stanford.edu/service/network |url-status= live }} Project Athena at MIT,{{cite web |title= Athena history (1983 - present) from A to Z |publisher= MIT |url= http://web.mit.edu/acs/athena.html |accessdate= May 4, 2011 |archive-date= April 25, 2017 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20170425071231/http://web.mit.edu/acs/athena.html |url-status= live }} and the Andrew Project at Carnegie Mellon University.{{Cite FTP |title= CMU's Andrew project: a retrospective |author= N. S. Borenstein |date= December 1996 |volume= 39 |issue= 12 |pages= 298 |doi= 10.1145/272682.272717 |url= ftp://ftp.andrew.cmu.edu/pub/AUIS/PAPERS/atk/Boren.CACM |server= Communications of the ACM |url-status= dead |authorlink= Nathaniel Borenstein }}
Corporate campuses
Much like a university campus network, a corporate campus network serves to connect buildings. Examples of such are the networks at Googleplex and Microsoft's campus. Campus networks are normally interconnected with high speed Ethernet links operating over optical fiber such as gigabit Ethernet and 10 Gigabit Ethernet.
Area range
The range of CAN is 1 km to 5 km. If two buildings have the same domain and they are connected with a network, then it will be considered as CAN only. Though the CAN is mainly used for corporate campuses so the link will be high speed.{{citation needed|date=November 2014}}