Mesh topology

The mesh topology is one of the most resilient and common network topologies in use today. And the reason for that is that it is almost entirely arbitrary in how it is organized. A mesh topology simply describes any non-formal topology of connectivity in which some nodes are connected by way of a single point-to-point connection to some other nodes, and some may have multiple connections to multiple nodes. The original graph diagram from the beginning of this chapter, shown as follows, is technically a mesh network topology:

You'll note that the nodes in the preceding diagram have anywhere from one to three direct connections to other nodes in the network. This can provide some of the resilience of other network topologies where necessary, without incurring their costs. Since there is no obvious specification for a mesh network other than that it does not fully implement any of the other network topologies we discussed, it can include networks with an arbitrary degree of connectivity between nodes up to, and including, a fully-connected mesh network.