Full mesh topology

In short: In a full mesh topology every device is connected directly to every other.

In more detail: With n devices you need n·(n−1)/2 links. With 5 devices that is 10, with 10 devices already 45.

In Depth

Advantages

• Very high reliability: if a link fails, other paths exist immediately.
• No central point of failure.
• Direct connections with low latency and no bottleneck.

Disadvantages

• The number of cables and ports grows quadratically. Expensive and hard to oversee.
• Hard to extend: each new device needs a link to all others.

Partial mesh

In practice often only a partial mesh is built, where only the important devices are connected multiple times. The internet itself is a huge partial mesh. In Wi-Fi such networks are called mesh networks.

See also: network topologies, star topology, hybrid topology, redundancy