Network Topologies

Common physical and logical network layouts.

  • JSON4,024 B
  • YAML2,885 B · −28%
  • TOON2,337 B · −42%

The classic ways to wire a network, from bus and ring to star and mesh, with the trade-offs of each, plus point-to-point, hub-and-spoke, spine-leaf and daisy-chain layouts that appear in modern WANs and data centers.

Use it when

  • You are comparing physical or logical layouts for a design or an exam answer.
  • You need the failure characteristics of a layout in one line.

Watch out for

  • Physical and logical topology can differ: a switched Ethernet network is wired as a star but behaves as a shared segment for broadcast purposes.
  • Bus and ring layouts are mostly historical for LANs; modern wired networks are switched stars or spine-leaf fabrics.

The data

TopologyDescriptionPros cons
BusAll devices share a single central cable.Cheap but hard to troubleshoot.
StarAll devices connect to a central hub or switch.Easy to manage; central point of failure.
RingDevices connect in a circular fashion.Predictable performance; single break can disrupt.
MeshDevices connect to many other devices.High redundancy; expensive.
TreeHierarchical star topology.Scalable; root failure affects branches.
HybridCombination of two or more topologies.Flexible but complex.
Point-to-PointA dedicated link between exactly two nodes.Simple and predictable; does not scale to many nodes.
Hub-and-SpokeBranch sites connect to a central site rather than to each other.Few links and central control; the hub is a bottleneck and single point of failure.
Spine-LeafEvery leaf switch connects to every spine switch in a data-center fabric.Predictable, low-latency paths and easy horizontal scaling; needs many cables and ports.
Daisy ChainDevices are connected one after another in a line.Minimal cabling; a failure in the middle splits the chain.

Fields

The shape of this dataset, read from the data itself: every column, its type and a real value. Agents can use this to plan a query without fetching the whole document.

SectionFieldTypeExample
datatopologystringBus
datadescriptionstringAll devices share a single central cable.
datapros_consstringCheap but hard to troubleshoot.

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Topics

  • networking
  • topology
  • architecture

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