Offline area network
An offline area network (OAN) is a computer network that connects localized computer devices such as tablets, PC's, laptops, and other connected computers to a server or mainframe on a private localized network at a home, office, campus or trusted location like laboratories or Government facilities. Much like LAN's and WAN's an OAN network topology can use traditional ARCNET, token ring, ethernet, twisted pair cabling and wifi to build the OAN. However, what sets an OAN apart from LAN's and WAN's is data delivery outside of the localized "secure" network is not done over the Internet due to security issues. Instead, data transport between locations gets done using analog delivery methods such as mail, courier, vaulted delivery or other offline methods. In an OAN network data is sent between multiple locations through data backed up on SSD or HDD disks, tape or some other secure form of digital storage that bypasses the Internet and the security issues associated with traditional network based data delivery.
History
As the Internet has become more insecure and data breaches escalate to new highs a need for more secure and trusted ways of delivering data was needed. Daren Klum the inventor of offline area networking (OAN) developed his unique approach to digital security when traditional methods of digital delivery were not meeting the security needs of today's enterprises. Mr. Klum along with his team at CRAM Worldwide a Minnesota based technology company developed the technology and started building solutions for healthcare, medical and entertainment industries. CRAM patented this technology on Mar. 17, 2011 - US 2011/0066861
Ethernet was developed at Xerox PARC in 1973–1975, and filed as . In 1976, after the system was deployed at PARC, Metcalfe and Boggs published a seminal paper, "Ethernet: Distributed Packet-Switching For Local Computer Networks."
ARCNET was developed by Datapoint Corporation in 1976 and announced in 1977. It had the first commercial installation in December 1977 at Chase Manhattan Bank in New York.
Standards evolution
The development and proliferation of personal computers using the CP/M operating system in the late 1970s, and later DOS-based systems starting in 1981, meant that many sites grew to dozens or even hundreds of computers. The initial driving force for networking was generally to share storage and printers, which were both expensive at the time. There was much enthusiasm for the concept and for several years, from about 1983 onward, computer industry pundits would regularly declare the coming year to be “the year of the LAN”.
In practice, the concept was marred by proliferation of incompatible physical layer and network protocol implementations, and a plethora of methods of sharing resources. Typically, each vendor would have its own type of network card, cabling, protocol, and network operating system. A solution appeared with the advent of Novell NetWare which provided even-handed support for dozens of competing card/cable types, and a much more sophisticated operating system than most of its competitors. Netware dominated the personal computer LAN business from early after its introduction in 1983 until the mid 1990s when Microsoft introduced Windows NT Advanced Server and Windows for Workgroups.
Of the competitors to NetWare, only Banyan Vines had comparable technical strengths, but Banyan never gained a secure base. Microsoft and 3Com worked together to create a simple network operating system which formed the base of 3Com's 3+Share, Microsoft's LAN Manager and IBM's LAN Server - but none of these were particularly successful.
During the same period, Unix computer workstations from vendors such as Sun Microsystems, Hewlett-Packard, Silicon Graphics, Intergraph, NeXT and Apollo were using TCP/IP based networking. Although this market segment is now much reduced, the technologies developed in this area continue to be influential on the Internet and in both Linux and Apple Mac OS X networking—and the TCP/IP protocol has now almost completely replaced IPX, AppleTalk, NBF, and other protocols used by the early PC LANs.
Cabling
Early LAN cabling had always been based on various grades of coaxial cable. However shielded twisted pair was used in IBM's Token Ring implementation, and in 1984 StarLAN showed the potential of simple unshielded twisted pair by using Cat3—the same simple cable used for telephone systems. This led to the development of 10Base-T (and its successors) and structured cabling which is still the basis of most commercial LANs today. In addition, fiber-optic cabling is increasingly used in commercial applications.
As cabling is not always possible, wireless Wi-Fi is now the most common technology in residential premises, as the cabling required is minimal and it is well suited to mobile laptops and smartphones.