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• Network Topologies

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

− Each host has an individual point-to-point connection to a centralized


hub or switch.
− A hub forwards every frame out every port, excluding the port
originating the frame.
− A switch builds a hardware address table, allowing it to make
intelligent forwarding decisions based on frame (data-link) headers.

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

− At the physical layer.


− It is a multiport repeater.
− All devices in the same collision domain.
− All devices in the same broadcast domain.
− Hubs, like repeaters, don’t examine any of the traffic as it enters or before it’s transmitted out
to the other parts of the physical media.
− It utilizes half-duplex communication mode.
− Uses Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Collision Detect ion(CSMA/CD) to control media
access.

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• Networking Devices

− A host first checks the line before sending.


− The transmitting host constantly monitors the line
and it sends out an extended jam signal if it detects
another signal on the line.
− When a collision occurs:
− A jam signal informs all devices that a collision
occurred.
− The collision invokes a random backoff algorithm.
− Each device stops transmitting for a short time
until its backoff timer expires.
− All hosts have equal priority to transmit after the
timers have expired.

Ref: Todd Lammle, CCNA Routing and Switching Study


Guide, Wiley, 2013. 60
• 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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