Backbone network
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A backbone network or network backbone is a part of computer network infrastructure that interconnects various pieces of network, providing a path for the exchange of information between different LANs or subnetworks.[1] A backbone can tie together diverse networks in the same building, in different buildings in a campus environment, or over wide areas. Normally, the backbone's capacity is greater than the networks connected to it.
A large corporation that has many locations may have a backbone network that ties all of the locations together, for example, if a server cluster needs to be accessed by different departments of a company that are located at different geographical locations. The pieces of the network connections (for example: ethernet, wireless) that bring these departments together is often mentioned as network backbone. Network congestion is often taken into consideration while designing backbones.
Backbone networks should not be confused with the Internet backbone.
[edit] 80/20 Rule
A rule for backbones that is now slightly out of date is that 80 percent of the traffic stays in the department, while 20 percent crossed the backbone. With this model, high data throughput rates on the backbone were not a priority. For example if your department used 100-Mbit/s Ethernet, you could usually get by with a 1000Mbit/s backbone.[2]
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ What is a Backbone?, Whatis.com, Accessed: June 25, 2007
- ^ Backbone Networks, linktionary.com, Accessed: September 27, 2008
