Internet Protocol (IP) Address

Internet Protocol (IP) Address

Internet Protocol is the main source to connect and communicate with network, without internet protocol no end device communicates with network.

Classes of Internet protocol (IP)

There are FIVE classes of IP Address

Class	Range	Network (N) and Host (H) Parts
A	1 TO 127	N.H.H.H
B	128 TO 191	N.N.H.H
C	192 TO 223	N.N.N.H
D	224 TO 239	Only for experimental use
E	240 TO 255	Only for experimental use

• Class A has 126 Networks having 16,777,214 hosts per network.
• Class B has 16,382 Networks having 65,534 hosts per network.
• Class C has 2,097,150 Networks having 254 hosts per network.

Methods to assign IP Address to device

There are two methods to assign IP address to any device.

1. Static
2. Dynamic

Static

In this method IP address is assigned by user manually to the device so that device can connect with network and communicates over the network. In this method IP address stay assigned till the users changes again by itself.

Dynamic

In this method IP address is assigned by the server on which DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) is configured. DHCP used to assign the IP address to the end device when end device activates and request for the IP address DHCP searches the first available IP address in its pool. This address is valid till the device is on as device shuts down the IP address is taken back by the DHCP.

Internet Protocol (IP) is also divided into sub-networks to save the IP Addresses. This process is called Subnetting.

Subnetting

Subnetting means dividing major network into subnetworks to overcome the broadcast and collision domains.

Advantages of Subnetting

1. Subnetting reduces the broadcast domain.
2. Subnetting reduces the collision domain.
3. Subnetting increases or optimizes the network speed and performance.
4. Subnetting simplifies the network management.

Process of Subnetting

To perform subnetting of a network, user have to deduct the bits from host octet and reserve them to create the subnetmask of new subnetwork.

For subnetting there are two formulas which are used

2^n

used to calculate the number of new subnets

In this formula "n" is the number of deducted bits from the host octet.

2^n-2

Used to calculate the number of valid hosts in subnet

In this formula "n" is the number of remaining bits in the host octet.

2 IP's are subtracted to calculate total valid IP's or assignable IP's and the subtracted IP's are Network IP and Broadcast IP.

What is Network IP?

Network IP is the IP which is used to identify the network to which all the valid IP belong. Network IP is also used to perform routing between different networks.

What is Broadcast IP?

Broadcast IP is the IP which is used to broadcast the message over the network instead of sending message one by one to the devices connected with that network.

Default Subnetmask of the classes are

Class A => 255.0.0.0

Class B => 255.255.0.0

Class C => 255.255.255.0

• IP's with any one of these subnetmask is know as Class-Full IP address.
• IP's having other than these subnetmask is know as Class-Less IP address.