As the hub manages the flow of communications, it is easy to detect failure of a particular station. The network will continue to process information even if one station or node fails. However, if the computer serving as the hub for the network fails, the whole network fails. Each station recognizes only its own address in the network and ignores messages sent to other stations. A break in a bus network renders the whole network as inoperable.
Breaks are often difficult to find.
In the topology of a ring network, a message passes through all nodes or stations in its path as it travels around the ring from origin to destination. In the ring topology a message passes through all nodes along the ring until it reaches its destination. The network topologies described above are usually located at one site and are known as a local area network. If the network spans between companies or sites, it becomes a wide area network. Those networks are also simple network topologies.