Internal users are reporting high latency when connecting to external servers in the cloud. Which of the following should a network administrator optimize?

High latency connecting to external cloud servers indicates an issue with the Wide Area Network (WAN), which is responsible for connecting the internal network to external networks like the internet and cloud providers. Optimizing WAN elements such as internet bandwidth, routing, or peering relationships with cloud providers will directly reduce latency for external traffic.

A Storage Area Network (SAN) is used for block-level storage access, not for user connectivity to external application servers.

A Virtual Local Area Network (VLAN) is a segmentation technology within a local area network (LAN) and does not directly affect connectivity latency to external cloud servers.

A Local Area Network (LAN) primarily handles internal network traffic; while an overloaded LAN can cause issues, the problem specifies external servers, making the WAN the primary bottleneck.