Network Structure - Network+ Certification Tutorial

Star Topology

Star Topology is a physical network that has all of its nodes or devices connected to a centralized hub. It usually uses 10BASE5, 10BASET, or 10BASETX cabling. The max number of computers on the LAN is 1024.

There is a variation on the Star Topology, the Star Bus Topology, which has the hubs interconnected with linear bus trunks.

Bus Topology

The Bus Topology is the simplest form of a network. It is a single cable network that connects all of the computers. If one device in the network fails, they could all fail, thus the Bus type network is often harder to troubleshoot. Bus networks use 10BASE5 or 10BASE2 cabling mainly. A bus network needs to be terminated on each end.

Mesh Topology

In a Mesh Topology network, all of the devices are connected to each other. This allows a great deal of redundancy, and the ability for each device to find the faster route to the network. It is most commonly used in WANs as it is very costly to implement.

Ring Topology

In a Ring Topology network, the signal is passed from node to node in a circular fashion. The cabling is expensive, and if one of the nodes has a problem, it can be difficult to find the problem. Each node has a transceiver which behaves like a repeater and moves the signal around the ring. If one of the network adapters fail, the entire network goes down.

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