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Network topology is also called as network configuration. Topology is used to connect computer and other peripheral devices. There are three types of network topology known as Bus topology, Star Topology and Ring Topology. The computers or peripheral devices connected by network topology are called as nodes.

Bus Topology

Bus topologies consist of a central cable which is the backbone for the whole network. In this topology, the central cable is the most important part as once it broken down; the whole network will also be affected. All the nodes are connected to the central cable and the file are transferred using the central cable.

The advantage of this topology is that you can easily add or remove any nodes without shutting down the whole network and the network is not affected even if any nodes broken down.

However, there are also some disadvantages of this topology. If the central cable is spoil, the whole network will also fail to work. On top of that, the speed of communication decreases when the number of nodes attached to it increases.

Star Topology

In star topology, there is a main computer (server) which control or regulate all the communication of the nodes in the network. All nodes are connected to the centre, thus it look like a star and named star topology.

You can easily add or remove nodes from the network without shutting down the whole network and the nodes which spoil will not affect the network. On top of that, the trouble shooting is easy if host are spoilt.

However, the whole network will be broken down if the host spoilt. On top of that, the troubleshooting is hard when the nodes are broken down and the speed of communication decreased when the number of nodes connected to it increases.

Ring Topology

Ring topology is a topology where all the nodes are interconnected in a circle. Each node are connected to two neighboring nodes and not all nodes are connected to the host.

If there is any failure node, the removal of the node will solve the problem.

For ring topology, the addition or removal of nodes are hard to be made as the whole system need to be shut down. Besides that, the speed of the network communication also decreases when the number of nodes increases.

Image via Wikipedia

I just explain three of the topology as they are the basic which must be know.

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