What are the advantages of a physical star topology as compared to the older legacy

topologies?

To answer this question, I will compare physical star topology and bus topology which is

a legacy topology. In a bus topology, there is a cable to which all the devices in a network are

connected. On the other hand, a star topology has its devices connected to a central hub which

could be a router or a switch (Denton, 2018). On bus topology a signal is broadcasted on the

cable and it travels to all the devices connected to the bus cable, this is already a challenge

because the whole network depends on the bus cable so in case of any problem with the cable

then the whole network would be down (Cronen, McQuiggan & Isenberg, 2018).

Troubleshooting thus is very difficult to be done on a single station. As seen above, there is also

a limit on the number of devices that could be connected; this is dependent on the length of the

bus cable.

In comparison to the most used physical star topology, there are a lot of benefits that it

brings along and thus rendering bus topology redundant. For instance, unlike in bus topology, a

signal sent will not at any point pass through more than one device before it reaches its

destination; this makes it reliable (Denton, 2018). Additionally, unlike in bus topology, the

performance in the network depends on the capacity of the central hub and not a cable.

Why is the most commonly used network topology now the extended star?

An extended star topology refers to a network structure in which all the components

belonging to a specific network are connected to a central device known as a hub, switch, or

even a router (Alshawwa & Shawwa, 2020). The type of connection here is thus known as a
point-to-point connection. Its first advantage is that its performance is much better, this is

because a signal that is sent does not necessarily go to all the workstations or the hub. A sent

signal reaches its destination after passing not more than one signal. Another advantage that also

comes with this is that there is the element of centralized management that helps with monitoring

and diagnosing problems in the network.

Another advantage that is present in star topology is that in case one device fails then the

other elements in the same network are not affected because these devices are independent of

other connection links (Cronen, McQuiggan & Isenberg, 2018). It is also easier to troubleshoot

and detect where the failure is in the network. The last advantage is that the performance in the

network is dependent on the capacity of the central hub.

Discuss the use of mesh topology as a means of providing redundancy and fault tolerance

into a network design.

A mesh topology has multiple connections as a result of this, it is the most fault-tolerant

topology available today. Every component in this topology is directly connected to all the other

components in the network. This is important because if some sections of the cable break then

the traffic would be rerouted to the devices using the other cable (Denton, 2018). As imagined,

this topology is rarely used due to the significant cost and work involved in setting everything to

get the network up and running.

Redundancy in the network comes about as a result of its design where there is the

provision of two or more direct links between the devices in a network. Because all the stations

are directly connected, data being sent can use any of the available routes in case of a problem in
one path. For this to be possible, each device or router rather must have two or more routes

configured to the other locations. This allows for one of the lines to be taken down for example

during scheduled maintenance or in case of a disaster. Full mesh or partial mesh could be used.

What is the infrastructure required to implement Wi-Fi and how does it work?

It is no surprise that just like any other wireless device, WI-FI infrastructure also works

similarly to them. It uses radio frequencies to send signals to the devices. Also, for an individual

to get the messages that are sent in these waves, the radio receiver must be set to receive the

waves at a particular frequency (Cronen, McQuiggan & Isenberg, 2018). For WI-FI, this is

usually 2.4 GHz and 5Ghz.

and collision domains, and error handling.

Ethernet refers to a traditional method of connecting devices in a wired local area

network or wide area network. With this connection, the devices can communicate with one

another using some specified protocol. Ethernet itself defines how devices in a network can

format themselves and transmit data from one device to another on either the same local or

campus area network (Cronen, McQuiggan & Isenberg, 2018). To date, ethernet is still widely

used all over the world for network connection. They are most used in some specific

organizations such as school campuses, hospitals, and company offices. Its advantages include;

high reliability, high speed, and security.

In networking, addressing is mainly found in layer three in a network layer and it is one

of the major tasks. Addressing is usually logical in that these are software-based addresses that

can be changed at any given time; they are majorly used for configuration purposes. Addressing

always either points to the host or the whole network. IP addressing which is one type of address

is used to identify the host from the network (Cronen, McQuiggan & Isenberg, 2018). Since

addressing is done in a hierarchical order, the host part usually resides within a specific part in

the network while the other part finds the destination of the network address.

A frame in networking refers to a segment of the network or even a telecommunication

link. In general, it consists of a header, destination, source addresses, payload section, and some

elements of error-checking information (Alshawwa, & Shawwa, 2020). The frames are usually

generated by either the data-link layer or the physical layer of the OSI model. The process of
assembling them is known as framing. The Data segments that are generated by the higher layer

of the OSI model are referred to as packets but the term packet is also sometimes used to refer to

frames.

A media access control refers to a data transfer policy that determines how data/packets

are transmitted between two computer terminals through a network cable. The media access

control policy mainly is seen with the sub-layers of the data-link layer 2 in the OSI model. The

importance of media access control protocol is to ensure that there is non-collision and also to

ease the transfer of packets between two computers.

A collision occurs when two or more terminals transmit data at the same time. This can

lead to a breakdown in communication; it could be costly especially to organizations that rely on

high transmission of data. Because of this, a lot of protocols in networking confirm that a packet

had been delivered before transmitting the next data. When a station begins transmitting data

over a channel and it detects a collision, the transmission will cause a jam in the signal

(Alshawwa, & Shawwa, 2020). Both stations will as a result stop transmission of data and wait a

random interval of time before it tries again. The amount of wait time before transmission begins

again all depends on the number of collisions that took place in the network.

The term collision domain refers to that part of a network where the collision of packets

takes place. Collisions of packets happen in case two devices that share similar network

segments send packets at the same time (Alshawwa, & Shawwa, 2020). Collisions most often

occur in a hub environment since all the devices connected to the hub are in a similar collision
domain. One only device can send packets at a time while the other devices listen to the network

to avoid collisions.

When sending data or packets rather from one device to another, there is always a chance

that the data might either be corrupted or get lost. The error occurs if the data received does not

match the one that was sent (Alshawwa, & Shawwa, 2020). So, in case an error occurs, there

should be a way in which the data is retransmitted. This could be done through a process known

as automatic repeat request. one technique to handle the errors is the stop and wait for the

automatic repeat request method. A time out is set and maintained from the side of the sender.

So, two things happen here, first, if the sender does not receive an acknowledgment from the

receiver within a specific time, then it assumes that the data has been lost and then it retransmits

it again (Alshawwa, & Shawwa, 2020). Alternatively, if the receiver detects that some data are

missing or corruption in the frame then it sends a negative acknowledgment to the sender and the

data is retransmitted.
 REFERENCES

Denton, J. (2018). Learning OpenStack Networking: Build a solid foundation in virtual

networking technologies for OpenStack-based clouds. Packt Publishing Ltd.

Alshawwa, I., & Al-Shawwa, M. (2020). ITS for Learning Computer Network CCNA.

Cronen, S., McQuiggan, M., & Isenberg, E. (2018). Adult Training and Education: Results from

the National Household Education Surveys Program of 2016. First Look. NCES 2017-

103rev. National Center for Education Statistics.