IP Address

Just like every home has an address every node in the network has a unique address. IP address is the address used for communication between the computers at the network layer level. Every computer linked to the web will be allotted a 32 bit IP address during start up. The IP address can be broadly classified as two types namely classful and classless addressing. Let us take a look at the classful addressing

Every IP address can be dissected into two parts as netid and hostid. The netid identifies the network and the hostid identifies the host on the network.

Class A can be allocated to large size universal networks and they can accommodate a whopping 16,777,216 computers.

Class B addresses can incorporate 65,536 hosts and are most commonly allocated for intermediate size networks like MAN etc.

Class C addresses can support only 256 hosts and they are allocated to many small organizations with lower number of terminals.

Class D address serve as multicast addresses which are used to send data to several nodes at the same time.

Class E addresses are reserved for future use. Recently Classless addresses are being used. IP addresses are often used conservatively with the help of techniques like Network Address Translation(NAT) and Subnetting.