What is bus topology?

A bus topology consists of a main run of cable with a terminator at each end. All nodes like workstations, printers, laptops, servers etc., are connected to the linear cable. The terminator is used to absorb the signal when the signal reaches the end, preventing signal bounce. When using bus topology, when a computer sends out a signal, the signal travels the cable length in both directions from the sending computer. When the signal reaches the end of the cable length, it bounces back and returns in the direction it came from. This is known as signal bounce. Signal bounce may create problems in the computer network, because if another signal is sent on the cable at the same time, the two signals will collide. Collisions in a computer network can drastically reduce the performance of the computer network.

A bus topology consists of a single cable with the terminator at each end. All present nodes are connected to the single cable. There is no limit to the no: of nodes that can be attached to this network, but the no: of connected nodes can actually affect the performance of the network.

In a bus topology, one of the nodes acts as the server and transmits the data from one end to the other in a single direction. When the data reaches the extreme end, the terminator removes the data from the line.