CompTIA Network+ (2009 Objectives) Tutorials
Network Topology / Bus Topology
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Subtitles of the Movie (CompTIA Network+ (2009 Objectives) / Network Topology / Bus Topology)
The Bus topology was the topology of choice back in the very early days of Local Area Networking. The Bus topology is relatively simple. All devices simply connect to one main cable and it's called the Bus. And so as you can see here, all these computers connect to this one common cable, and this goes out to a router or to some other device. But everybody shares kind of the same freeway, if you will. Each end of the Bus has to be terminated. In other words, we have to make sure that when signals hit the end of the wire they don't bounce back down the wire and cause collisions and confusion with the rest of the data bits that are flying around in that cable. So each end has to be terminated on a Bus and all devices connect to the main cable. Now while this is relatively simple, there are some advantages and disadvantages that you need to understand about the Bus topology. It's very easy to recognize on the exam because you've got that one common main cable running all the way through the network that everybody's connected to. The first advantage of the Bus topology is it's very easy to install. You simply run a cable from your device down to the main bus and you're in. It's not very expensive because there's not a whole lot of cable. You've got your one main bus cable and then little short segments from each device to the main cable. And it's very easy to troubleshoot because since you don't have that much cable and you don't have that many connections it's very easy to determine where the problem is. Now a disadvantage is that you have a limited cable length and you're limited by the number of connected devices you can have to a particular length of cable because you get too many signals on that one common bus and you start to get all kind of collisions and the network capacity starts to fill up and transmission rates get slower and slower. Also - and this is the big one - if you have any kind of major problem with that main bus cable your entire network stops working. And, trust me, on days when the entire network goes down all kind of things happen. Number one, it's not a good day. Number two, you meet a lot of people in management that you've never met before and they're talking to you about things that, you know, about how money it's costing the company while your network is down, and they talk about openings they've heard about down at the local grocery store and all that sort of thing. So, the Bus topology has some distinct advantages, but in most networks nowadays the disadvantages far outweigh the advantages. So as a result, you don't see the Bus topology that much in the real world. But again, and I've mentioned this before in the course, you will still see this topology out there, especially in small businesses.
Tutorial Information
| Course: | CompTIA Network+ (2009 Objectives) |
| Author: | Mark Long |
| SKU: | 34216 |
| ISBN: | 1-936334-90-9 |
| Release Date: | 2011-04-29 |
| Duration: | 6 hrs / 91 lessons |
| Work Files: |
Yes |
| Captions: | No |
| Compatibility: |
Vista/XP/2000, OS X, Linux QuickTime 7, Flash 8 |
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