ring network Last modified: Monday, August 05, 2002
A local-area network (LAN) whose topology is a ring. That is, all of the nodes are connected in a closed loop. Messages travel around the ring, with each node reading those messages addressed to it. One of the advantages of ring networks is that they can span larger distances than other types of networks, such as bus networks, because each node regenerates messages as they pass through it. For network diagrams, see Network Topology Diagrams in the Quick Reference section of Webopedia.

Related Terms

bus network local-area network logical topology physical topology token-ring network topology