#BACKBONE MEANING IN NETWORKING HOW TO#
#BACKBONE MEANING IN NETWORKING INSTALL#
#BACKBONE MEANING IN NETWORKING PATCH#
#BACKBONE MEANING IN NETWORKING SERIES#

The devices in the rack are connected among themselves using very short cables called patch cablesįigure 8.8 An MDF with rack-mounted equipment. Once in the room, they are connected into the various devices. The cables from all computers and devices in the area served by the MDF (often hundreds of cables) are run into the MDF room. Figure 8.9 shows the equipment diagram of this same room. Figure 8.8 shows a photo of an MDF room at Indiana University. The room containing the rack of equipment is sometimes called the main distribution facility (MDF) or centra! distribution facility (CDF).

#BACKBONE MEANING IN NETWORKING INSTALL#

In most cases, the cost of the cable itself is only a small part of the overall cost to install the network, so the cost is greatly outweighed by the simplicity of maintenance and the flexibility it provides for future upgrades.įigure s.7 Rack-mounted switched backbone network design This has the advantage of placing all network equipment in one place for easy maintenance and upgrade, but it does require more cable. This form of switched backbone is shown graphically in Figure 8.7. Most organizations now use switched backbones in which all network devices for one part of the building are physically located in the same room, often in a rack of equipment.įigure s.6 Switched backbone network design This figure implies that the LAN switches are close to the computers in their LANs and farther from the backbone switch. There is a switch serving each LAN (access layer) which is connected to the backbone switch at the bottom of the figure (distribution layer).

#BACKBONE MEANING IN NETWORKING SERIES#

Figure 8.6 shows a switched backbone connecting a series of LANs. Switched backbone networks use a star topology with one switch at its center. They also are making their way into the core layer as the campus backbone, but routed backbones still remain common. Switched backbones are probably the most common type of BN used in the distribution layer (i.e., within a building) most new building BNs designed today use switched backbones. We assume that you are comfortable with the material on TCP/IP in next topic if you are not, you may want to go back and review the last section of the topic, entitled TCP/IP Example, before you continue reading. We focus on TCP/IP networks when comparing these architectures. In the sections that follow, we describe the three basic BN architectures and discuss at which layer they are often used. Other organizations are large enough that they have a core network at several locations that are in turn connected by WANs. Some small organizations are not large enough to have a core layer their backbone spans only the distribution layer. The core layer is technologies used in the campus network or the enterprise network. The core layer is the part of the backbone that connects the different BNs together, often from building to building. This is the part of the backbone that contains the 'TCP/IP gateways' described in next topic. The distribution layer is the part of the backbone that connects the LANs together. Although the access layer is not part of the BN, the technologies used in the LANs (or access layer) can have major impacts on the design of the backbone.įigure s.5 Backbone network design layers. The layer closest to the users is the access layer, the technology used in the LANs attached to the BN as described in the previous topic (e.g., 100Base-T, wireless Ethernet) (Figure 8.5). Network designers often think about three distinct technology layers1 when they design BNs.

#BACKBONE MEANING IN NETWORKING HOW TO#

Before we discuss these architectures, we first must discuss the way in which network designers think about backbone designs and how to combine them that is, the different layers of backbones that exist in most organizations today. These architectures are mixed and matched to build sets of BNs. These architectures are routed backbones (routers that move packets on the basis of network layer addresses), switched backbones (switches that move packets based on data link layer addresses), and virtual LANs (switches that move packets through LANs that are built virtually, not using physical location). While there are an infinite number of ways in which network designers can build backbone networks, there are really only three fundamental architectures that can be combined in different ways. The backbone architecture refers to the way in which the backbone interconnects the networks attached to it and how it manages the way in which packets from one network move through the backbone to other networks.

Backbone meaning in networking