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Bus Topology
− All hosts share a single physical segment (the bus or the backbone) to communicate.
− A frame sent by one host is received by all other hosts on the bus.
− Inexpensive.
Disadvantages
− Both ends of the bus must be terminated, otherwise a signal will reflect back and cause
interference, severely degrading performance.
− Adding or removing hosts to the bus can be difficult.
− The bus represents a single point of failure.
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Ref: Forouzan, data communications and networking, 5th ed.
• Network Topologies
Star Topology
Advantages
− Adding or removing hosts is very easy task.
− a break in a cable will affect only that one host, and not the entire network.
Disadvantages
− The hub or switch represents a single point of failure.
− Equipment and cabling costs are generally higher than in a bus topology. 57
• Networking Devices
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• Networking Devices
Hub
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• Networking Devices
Switch
− At the data-link layer.
− It filters the transmitted data according to MAC
address.
− Switches use Application-Specific Integrated
Circuits (ASICs) to build and maintain filter tables.
− It puts the source MAC address in a filter table and keeps track of which port it was
received on.
− After establishing the filter table, it only forward frames to the interface or port where the
destination MAC address is located.
− If the transmitted frame carries an unknown destination MAC, the switch will forward the
frame to all connected devices to see which device replies to this frame to update the
MAC filtering table.
− Uses full-duplex mode.
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