High Availability Network Fundamentals

Serial Topology

Each device in a serial topology takes in some data from one direction and moves that data off to some other place. Although serial topologies often run switching or routing protocols, they are not usually used for healing the network when a network device fails. In a serial topology, the switching and routing protocols are run to segment the network traffic and make sure the right bits go to the right buckets.

Figure 3-1 shows a few network devices arranged in a serial topology. If any one of these devices fails, a major network outage would occur. Additionally, the devices are running a routing protocol to make sure that network traffic all goes to only the right place. Although a routing protocol is running, a failure will ...