CISSP Training Guide

Network Topologies

Virtually all networks use one of the following topologies:

• Linear bus

• Star

• Ring

• Tree

• Mesh

We explore the different network topologies in more detail in the following sections.

Linear Bus Topology

One of the earliest networking topologies was the linear bus topology. In a linear bus, all the systems were connected in a row to a single cable in a daisy-chain fashion. This simply means that the cable runs from system 1 to system 2 to system 3. The piece of cable that all the systems were connected to is known as a segment. Coax-based networks were classical physical linear bus topologies, while Ethernet is a classical logical bus topology. We will talk more about Ethernet in a little bit. Figure 2.7 illustrates how a linear bus topology ...