Year 12s: what will be the first way you research your future options? >>

network topology

ok i have an exam tommorow and i dont know anything about networks. i know there are three types: star, ring and bus. but could someone please explain what each of these are and advamtages/disadvantages of them.

thanks!

Reply 1

Excalibur

Bus network: they have a hub at each end and are in like a line. This uses the least amount of cables, but data flow slows down with additional stations added.

Ring network: all of them connected in a circle. Data flow is fast because it only flows one way, but the disadvantage is that if one part of the network fails the whole thing fails, because it is in a circce.le.

The star network: this is where there is one server, with many stations branching off it, each with their own cable. This means there is more cabling so is more expensive, but it is the most common used now because a failure in one workstation doesn't affect the whole network. Data also flows fast and performance of network is less affected by the number of computers. Star topology has a the greatest fault tolerance.

Reply 2

iceman_jondoe

You might also want to note the possible advantages and disadvantages for each.. for example in a bus netwrok as information travels in one direction only it is possible for users to "grab" packets of information which is sent along the bus. THis is also true for the ring topology, the star topology on the other hard does not have this problem as each computer has its own connection with ther server. In addition a pc failing on the buss or ring netwrok will affect the entire netwrok. whilst it wont affect a star netwrok for obvious reasons.

Reply 3

theArchitect

Bus networks suffer performance wise when you have a lot of machines on the same segment as only one machine can transmit at a time otherwise you will get data collisions. This results in machines having to wait to transmit data. The way to solve this is to segment the network and join them with bridges.