If you're studying about networks and data communications, you must know about the topology and its types. Here i am going to share something about toplogy and its types.

Topology :

Topology refers to the way a network is laid out. The Networking infrastructure forms the basis of the networks and the higher level services can be built on this infrastructure. Generally the interconnected links and the nodes forms the topology of the network. The interconnection may be virtual or real. Topology is classified into two. They are Physical and Logical.

Physical Topology :

  It defines the interconnection of the physical nodes by the physical transmission links.

Logical Topology :

 It is the way that the data gets exchanged between the communicating elements. This topology also defines the connections between two or more logical nodes.

The Point-to-point connectivity is the simplest form of topology and it provide a single link between the two nodes. Many metropolitan cities use this type of topology.

Types Of Topology : 

Basically there are three types of topologies available. They are1.Mesh Topology2.Bus Topology  and 3.Star Topology

1.Mesh topology :

In this topology every device has a dedicated point-to-point link to every other device. These links carries the traffic only between the two devices it connects. The fully connected mesh topology has n(n-1)/2 physical channels to the link n devices.

2.Bus Topology :

In this topology the bus cable carries the transmitted message along with the cable. This long cable acts as the backbone to link all the devices in the network. This topology is also called as Multipoint topology. The nodes are connected to the cable by taps and drop lines. 

3.Star Topology :

In this topology each device requires only one link and one i/o port to connect it. It is also very easy to install, configure, modify and adding new workstations. This topology is less expensive when compared to mesh topology. If anyone link of the star topology fails, only that link is affected and all the other links remains active.

These are called topology and its types. This article is very useful to network students.