Please disable adblock to view this page.

← Go home

Network Topology

network topologies

October 27, 2016
Published By : Pratik Kataria
Categorised in:

network topologies
Network topology is the arrangement of the various elements (links, nodes, etc.) of a computer network.
Topology Types:

  • physical
  • logical

Physical topology refers to the placement of the network’s various components, including device location and cable installation
while logical topology shows how data flows within a network, regardless of its physical design.

PHYSICAL V/S LOGICAL TOPOLOGY

The actual layout of a network and its media is its physical topology
The way in which the data access the medium and transmits packets is the logical topology.
A glance at a network is not always revealing cables emerging from a Hub does not make it necessarily a star topology-it may actually be a bus or a ring .
Your choice of logical topology will affect the physical topology- and vice versa
Design carefully- it may be difficult to change part way through the installation
Your choice will determine cable installation, network devices, network connections, protocols(and where you will drill holes in the building)

FACTORS

  • Cost
  • Scalability
  • Bandwidth
  • Ease of installation
  • Ease of fault finding and maintenance

The physical topology of a network is the actual geometric layout of workstations.
There are several common physical topologies:

  • Bus
  • Ring
  • Star
  • Token Ring
  • Mesh
  • Tree

Logical (or signal) topology refers to the nature of the paths the signals follow from node to node.
the logical topology is the same as the physical topology. But this is not always the case.
For example, some networks are physically laid out in a star configuration, but they operate logically as bus or ring networks.