Backhauling? what does this mean?

[RashhadMiah91]

Hi all,

I am a newbie to the networking world and I was just wondering if someone can explain to me what the term BACKHAULING means.

In layman terms please, I have also had a look at google images and this still confuses me.

Thanks in advance 

[balaji.bandi]

here is good understanding information:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backhaul_%28telecommunications%29

Cisco Provider information :

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/solutions/service-provider/mobile-internet/index.html

[Marvin Rhoads]

In addition to the telecommunications-related citations mentioned by @balaji.bandi, we often use the term backhauling to describe forcing traffic to traverse a path that's not optimum so that we can put it through certain services at a remote location. For instance, forcing a branch office's Internet traffic to go back to the main office for enforcement of security policy and logging rather than directly out via the local Internet circuit. 

[RashhadMiah91]

Hi Marvin,

I still don't understand this - can you explain this in a more simplified form.

Thanks

[Marvin Rhoads]

Consider this scenario:

You have a head office and remote branch offices. All sites have Internet connections. All remote branch offices have site-site VPN to the head office (maybe it goes via the Internet circuit, maybe it's MPLS or some other private line - doesn't matter).

Traffic from a branch site is destined for the Internet. We force that traffic to transit the head office instead of going directly out the local connection.

That's backhauling.

[RashhadMiah91]

Thanks Marvis, this defiantly makes sense to me now. :)