Editing Grid network (section)

{{for|electric distribution grid networks|Low-voltage network}}

[[File:Grid Network.svg|thumb|right|Layout of a grid low-voltage network]]
A '''grid network''' is a [[computer network]] consisting of a number of computer systems connected in a grid topology.

In a regular grid topology, each node in the network is connected with two neighbors along one or more [[dimension]]s.  If the network is one-dimensional, and the chain of nodes is connected to form a circular loop, the resulting topology is known as a ring.  Network systems such as [[Fiber distributed data interface|FDDI]] use two counter-rotating [[token-passing]] rings to achieve high reliability and performance.  In general, when an ''n''-dimensional grid network is connected circularly in more than one dimension, the resulting network topology is a [[torus]], and the network is called "toroidal".  When the number of nodes along each dimension of a toroidal network is 2, the resulting network is called
a [[hypercube]].

A [[parallel computing]] cluster or [[multi-core]] processor is often connected in regular interconnection network such as a
[[de Bruijn graph]],<ref>
[http://www.era.lib.ed.ac.uk/bitstream/1842/860/1/Spadavecchia_thesis.pdf "A Network-based Asynchronous Architecture for Cryptographic Devices"]
by Ljiljana Spadavecchia 2005.
section "5.6.1.2 De Bruijn graphs", and section "5.6.2.2 Randomised routing in de Bruijn graphs".
</ref>
a [[hypercube graph]],
a [[hypertree network]],
a [[fat tree]] network,
a [[torus]], or [[cube-connected cycles]].

A grid network is not the same as a grid computer or a [[computational grid]], although the nodes in a grid network are usually computers, and [[grid computing]] requires some kind of [[computer network]] or "universal coding" to interconnect the computers.