Ring, star, and mesh are the “three basic architectures used in dedicated-circuit networking.” Imagine that you’re five years old again and you’re learning to draw, so you have a ‘connect the dots book.’ The first dot is in New York, the second in Illinois, the third in Oregon, the fourth in California, the fifth in Texas, and the sixth in Florida. When you connect the dots starting from New York in a counterclockwise manner, what you end up with looks like ring architecture. “A ring architecture connects all computers in a closed-loop, with each computer linked to the next.”
In comparison to other topologies such as mess and star, this one takes a long time to go through its cycle. In the connect the dots book example, if a person sends a message from New York to California, it takes a long time whether the message is sent through the links counterclockwise or vice versa. It takes very long for the message to get from one place to the other. There are no shortcuts. Henceforth, there’s a traffic problem. When so many messages are trying to go through the same route, something ought to happen. The ring topology is like New York City traffic. If any location has too many cars going through, it gets overloaded, and people try to go through other streets, and the entire city’s traffic network is affected even though there are shortcuts in the New York City topology.
Christmas lights used to be the kind where if one bulb went out, the entire set of lights would go it. Then new types of lights were introduced where if one circuit went out, the rest would still be okay. The same goes for the ring topology. If you want to send a message from New York to Texas and the circuit in Illinois is not working, then you can send the message through Florida. But just like New York City traffic, this can cause a lot of problems and create further traffic jams.
Star architecture is like a totalitarian government. There’s one big guy in the middle, and to do or say anything, you must pass through him. But unlike actual totalitarian governments, the network doesn’t oppress anyone and works better and faster than ring architecture. In the connect the dots example, if we add another dot right in the middle of the United States and connect each state with that dot using a separate line, we have star architecture.
Just like ring architecture, star architecture has its drawbacks. “The star topology is the most susceptible to traffic problems because the central computer must process all messages on the network. The central computer must have sufficient capacity to handle the traffic peaks, or it may become overloaded, and network performance will suffer.” To go from point A to B, you have to pass through the central computer. This minimizes the links you have to go through to get from one place to the other. For this to operate smoothly, the central computer that is linked to all the other computers must be extra reliable and be like Big Brother and see everything all the time. If the central computer ever fails, the entire topology will be affected and stop working.
Coming back to connect the dots example, the current picture looks like a star. The central dot is connected to each of the other six dots. Now, if we connect the dots between each of the six dots in every possible way, we end up with mesh architecture. “Full mesh networks are seldom used because of the extremely high cost. Partial mesh architecture, in which many, but not all, computers are connected, is far more common.” Wireless networks usually use this kind of architecture, so the messages can’t be delivered fast and more efficiently. Having a full mesh system is extremely expensive, so partial mesh systems are sometimes more common. Compared to a ring and star topology, mesh architecture gets the message across fast. If one link is not working, there are several other routes to send the message. Unfortunately, though this architecture also has its drawbacks because full mesh architectures aren’t always implemented. In a partial mesh system, there might be a few links to get from one place to the other, and if one of them stops working, it can affect the entire network.
Mesh architecture is the best option for connecting networks compared to the other architectures. Although the mesh has its drawbacks, it has more advantages. The other architectures have a more basic approach to communication. The ring and star architectures are not useless today, but the mesh is a faster way to do things. Each of the architectures is used where it can function best. For a small company with a low budget trying to manage in intranetwork, a star or ring topology might easily suffice. Complete mesh architecture is extremely expensive, but it is like a value-added feature in marketing terms. In a world where time is money, the mesh architecture delivers messages faster and more reliably with fewer traffic jams.