Photo by Alina Grubnyak on Unsplash

Types of Network Topology

Network topology is used to define the structure of the network and how the components are connected to each other. It is important to know the network topology when designing, building or troubleshooting a network. The network topology type can be vary depending on the technology or system used.

Several Network topology types are:

1. Star

Star Topology by Professor Messer

• Also known as Hub and Spoke.
• All devices are connected to central device such as hub or switch or through cable.

2. Ring

Ring topologies from Professor Messer

• All the devices are connected forming a ring where a device in the topology has 2 connected devices.
• the data flows in one direction. However, it can be bidirectional if used in Dual-Ring Topology.

3. Bus

Bus topology from Professor Messer.

• All the devices are connected to a single cable.
• It is a simple but prone to errors if the backbone fails, the topology fails.

4. Mesh

Mesh topology from Professor Messer.

• All devices are connected to one another via a particular device which is known as links.
• Mesh topology is used to reduce redundancy, increase fault tolerance and load balancing.
• Used in Wide Area Network (WAN) as it can be used to create link from one site to another.

However, most network right now use more than one type of topologies or hybrid.