Network Topologies

In order to understand how a network functions, it is important to understand the how end devices are connected. Here, I will discuss the five types of topology as well as a few related topics. 

The Past: Bus, Ring, & Star 

Bus

One of the two early topologies, bus connects computers in a "straight" line. The data travels from the source to the intended receiver, but it also travels to all other connections, moving away from the source. It is important to have terminators placed on the ends of the connection If no terminator is present, the network could go down from a signal bouncing off the ends and moving back toward the source.

Ring

In Ring topology, the computers are connected in a "ring" or circle. The data in this topology travels in one direction around the ring. Because of the ring design, termination points are not needed. 

Star

Both Ring and Bus are great, but are somewhat easily vulnerable to full network stops. If a connection breaks in either of these topologies, the network stops. Star introduced fault tolerance. Star was setup by placing a central box in the center of computers, and it looked like a star. This allows a connection to break and other computers to still function as normal. 

The Present: Hybrid and Mesh

Hybrids

Hybrids emerged from the combinations of the ring & star as well as the bus & star. When you take at look at these models, they will look like star topologies. The difference is that the bus and ring topologies have been shrunk into the central box of the star topology.

Mesh

Mesh is the topology that this used in wireless connections. There are two types of mesh topologies: partially meshed and fully meshed. Partially meshed topologies are designed so that only a few computer have multiple connections to other computers. Fully meshed topologies, however, have all computers connected to each other. 

Cisco Packet Tracer

Earlier this week, I took the time to enroll in Cisco's Packet Tracer course. This gave me access to the Packet Tracer software. When I was looking into it, I saw it was free and thought it would just help with some simple modeling of networks... Well it does way more than that. As I was getting familiar with the program, the ways to link devices were shown, and I was able to later make sense of them in this week's reading. 

Sources:

CompTIA Network+ Certification All-in-One Exam Guide, Sixth & Seventh Edition (Exam N10-007)