Need some input...

jlambert

Ok I got into a debate with my teacher about this and he seems to not agree with me and I would like to know what people in the industry would think rather than a teacher reading out of a book.

The question is multiple choice...

Which of the following networking topologies is fault intolerant?
a. Star
b. Ring
c. Bus
d. None

I believe that this question cannot be answered because it does not give the option that more than one answer is write and in fact all 3 of them are fault intolerant and d. should read "All of the above". I told him the only topology I would consider fault tolerant is Mesh due to its many many ways of accessing one thing, but my teacher says that if you cut a cable in the mesh you are no longer able to access that info. I say thats the point in a mesh, so that if your cable breaks there is always another way to what you need. Please reassure me that I know what I'm talking about and that this question is indeed poorly written.

Webmaster

Not a very 'good' question indeed.

I say thats the point in a mesh, so that if your cable breaks there is always another way to what you need.

Depends on what you are connecting in a mesh, if you connect routers in a mesh (for example using PVCs between all connections in Frame Relay network/cloud) than, typically, you are correct. A mesh topology is not always implemented to provide fault tolerance, it's also done to assure every two nodes have a direct path.

Also, a ring, in the context of FDDI, provides fault tolerance. So does a Token Ring ring to a certain extent (if one host on a MSAU fails the port can be bypassed so the ring doesn't break.)

The question would be indeed "which is fault tolerant?" and than obviously the answer would be mesh, certainly on a Network+ level.