A network team is comparing physical WAN topologies for connecting remote sites to a headquarters building. Which topology provides high availability and connects some, but not all, remote sites?

• A. mesh
• B. partial mesh
• C. hub and spoke
• D. point-to-point

Answer: (B)

The main idea is redundancy and scalable interconnection among multiple remote sites. A partial mesh provides high availability by giving multiple inter-site paths, but only among some sites rather than connecting every site to every other site. This offers protection against link or node failures for critical paths without the cost and complexity of a full mesh. Hub-and-spoke concentrates traffic through a central hub, which creates a single point of failure and isn’t as resilient. Point-to-point links only connect two sites and don’t scale to many locations with redundant paths. So, partial mesh best fits “high availability and connects some, but not all, remote sites.”