Term: BACKBONE
The backbone usually refers to the communications line of a "Bus" type network such as Ethernet. Arms or nodes of the network connect to the Backbone and receive signals to determine if the information is for that specific network user. The primary connectivity mechanism of a hierarchical distributed system. All systems, which have connectivity to an intermediate system on the backbone, are assured of connectivity to each other. This does not prevent systems from setting up private arrangements with each other to bypass the backbone for reasons of cost, performance or security. See Core Gateway.
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