Talk:Ring network

Advantages and Disadvantages

Tidied up and added to the advantages and disadvantages. More contributions would be useful. --Stuk 20:40, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Forgive me for ranting about a pet peeve of mine, but -- advantages and disadvantages compared to what? --68.0.120.35 06:19, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Queries

Just to check: was I right to move "Numerous connections to other computers mean that a computer is less likely to become isolated from the network due to a failure" to the ADVANTAGES instead of disadvantages? It seems advantagous to me, but maybe I'm missing somthing? DanielBC 11:32, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Does anyone know why the whole section on advantages and disadvantages was taken out? it seemed fine to me. Tureyhall 04:33, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Use of consistent terminology.

In the general descriptions the term "user" should be replaced with "node" to be consistent with the general network topology discussion. Also, the term "client-server" should be replaced with "star" as client-server is not a topology and the intended comparison appears to be to a star network topology.

I'm confused

Advantages... Quote "Because data travels in one direction high speeds of transmission of data are possible".

I'm trying to understand ring topologies. Why is this statement true? In my mind, it is only true if you make the assumption that "The ring is using token ring technology."

What is not stated is the types of connection possible to form a ring topology. E.g. If I have multiple PCs, each with two 100Base-T ethernet cards in each, and then connect them in a ring... does that automaticly mean data will start flowing in one direction?

If not... then the stated advantage above is misleading.

What I also think should be clarified is the physical type of connections at each node that make it a ring. E.g. two ethernet ports, a wire coming out of each. I think references to the different standards and how they handle (or operate upon) ring topologies (if at all) should be explained on this wiki page.--Markavian 22:51, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Is this applicable?

Advantages... Quote "When using a coaxial cable to create a ring network the service becomes much faster"

Why? Is this an advantage specific to ring networks? Or does this refer to a closed loop bus?

Ring Network Upgrade

As I heard, there is an upgrade for ring network. There are 2 cables between each computer, so the data transfer can be a "2-way" transfer. I dont really know every advantage but... i think its faster & data can be sent in the, simply, other way. Can anybody find some data about this 2-way ring network? --Boky 15:38, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

OK, I added what little I know about "counter-rotating ring networks". Is that what you are remembering, or is there something else you could add? --68.0.120.35 06:19, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

slight modification of page layout

I've changed the table indicating advantages/disvantages, and added a picture, to match other network topology pages like :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_network http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_network

stdazi

advantages and disadvantages.

Where have pros and cons gone? They are very important! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 83.70.105.254 (talk) 11:57, 11 May 2007 (UTC).

Messed Up

Either I am, or the article is. I think there is a lot of mixing up of ring topology versus the Token Ring protocol. Most of the advantages and disadvantages refer to Token Ring specifically, not ring network topology in general. Further, a Token Ring network doesn't HAVE to have a MAU (concentrator), and so isn't *necessarily* physically star based. The IBM Type 1 cables are self-shorting and hermaphroditic. The cabling in the walls needn't be home-run back to a central point- there can be a single pair between wall jacks, running in a ring between all of them. When a cable is removed from the wall jack, contacts close and the ring (hopefully) remains intact.

Further, and this is where I'm messed up, do network topologies refer to how the cables run, or how the conductors run? I mean, the IBM MAU is a dumb piece of equipment. The original ones were just wires, afaik. The later ones involved logic that would shut off misbehaving ports. But topographically they are a ring, that just happens to be home-run. Same thing with fiber- the individual fibers are in a ring configuration, even if those conductors are bundled inside a single sheath.

But I don't have references to use to edit the article to be more correct. 67.167.249.170 (talk) 03:01, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

I agree with the above comments. There is clear confusion (or rather lack of awareness) between physical and logical topologies. Token ring is always a logical ring topology, regardless of its physical (layer 1) connectivity (university lecturer, Sheffield Hallam, UK) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.31.91.239 (talk) 21:12, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Citations

The {{refimprove}} tag is arguably overused. Here it is quite appropriate. There are numerous dubious statements in the Advantages, Disadvantages and Misconceptions sections. We need to find references to support these statements or we need to rewrite or delete these sections. -—Kvng 15:23, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

• Very orderly network where every device has access to the token and the opportunity to transmit

This speaks to the media access control scheme, (presumably token ring not necessarily the topology. Token bus has the same orderly media access but uses bus topology.

• Performs better than a bus topology under heavy network load

Again this is about media access control scheme, not topology. Switched Ethernet has better performance than token ring because multiple conversations can be going on at the same time.

• Point to point line configuration makes it easy to identify and isolate faults.

Ever try to fix a set of Christmas lights?

• More difficult to configure than a Star: node adjunction ⇨ Ring shutdown and reconfiguration

Contracts a statement in the Advantage section that claimed rings were easier to configure.

Misconceptions: "Rings prevent collisions."

This appears wrong: rings do prevent collisions because each transmission line is driven by only one device. Without two devices able to drive a line, there can be no collision. It goes on to say (correctly I believe) that "The term 'ring' only refers to the layout of the cables," but then gives an example of IBM Token Ring where the physical cable connections are not a ring. Cjs (talk) 17:01, 21 May 2023 (UTC)