• Bus
• Ring
• Star
• Tree
• Mesh

Usually connected by an Ethernet cable, the bus topology connects your workstations along an open cable length or backbone. As you can see from the diagram below, this cable is never allowed to form a closed loop.

If you need a simple, low traffic network for up to 30 users, bus topology may be right for you. It is an easy topology to configure, expand on and connect to. You may not need anything more than a server, workstations, an Ethernet, thinnet or thicknet cable, and network interface cards. This makes your installation and administration costs low.

The bus topology does have specific limitations. If a problem occurs on the backbone, the entire network will go down. Troubleshooting can be difficult. And because data is sent one packet at a time, adding users to the network will slow it down. This, as well as high re-configuration costs, limits future expansion.