network topologies...

[machow]

well just curious to know: if 4 computers are connected to a hub, will it be bus or star? my friend told me it wouldn't be a bus if there are no terminators, and i thought i wouldn't be a star since all computers are not connected to a central computer physically... or does the hub has terminators built-in?

<<I Come And Go All The Time>>

 

[jlanka]

if 4 computers are connected to a hub, will it be bus or star?

That config is star. Typically these days pretty much everything is wired star config. In the old days when they used a lot of coax that was bus (AKA daisy chain).

<i>It's always the one thing you never suspected.</i>

 

[hammerhead]

It's a star network with the HUB at the centre. There is no central computer (unless you want to argue that the hub itself is a simple computer), it's a peer-to-peer network.

 

[machow]

Interesting... so those books shouldn't have drawn a computer in the center because that is not the case all the time... thanks for the information guys.

<<I Come And Go All The Time>>

 

[jlanka]

Right. Basically it would be any "box" in the center that relays network traffic to the end points of the star.

<i>It's always the one thing you never suspected.</i>

 

[hammerhead]

The diagrams with a computer at the centre, generally depict client/server networks (big server computer provides services for little client computers (or terminals)), as opposed to peer-to-peer networks (where every computer is equal, as far as the network is concerned).