WHAT IS A NETWORK OR IP ADDRESS?

IP Address                        

Addresses in computer networks are known as IP addresses, IP stands for Internet Protocol. An IP address consists of two components the network address and the host address.

Network Address                                       

A network address is any logical or physical address that uniquely distinguishes a network node or device over a computer or telecommunications network. It is a numeric/symbolic number or address that is assigned to any device that seeks access to or is part of a network. The network address is used to find the subnet in which the computer or the device is located 

Host Address                                              Filter. The physical address of a computer in a network. On the Internet, a host address is the IP address of the machine. The host address is used to find the computer or the device in the subnet.

Example: Say the IP address of your computer at work is 192.168.32.170. The network ID of this IP address is 192.168.32.0. The host ID is 170.

IP Versions                      

There are two versions of IP that currently coexist in the global Internet: IP version 4 (IPv4) and IP version 6 (IPv6). IP addresses are made up of binary values and drive the routing of all data over the Internet. IPv4 address are separated by periods while IPv6 address are separated by colons.

IP version 4

IPv4 was the first and standard version of IP. It was deployed for production in the ARPANET in 1983. Today it is most widely used IP version. It is used to identify devices on a network using an addressing system.

The IPv4 uses a 32-bit address scheme allowing to store 2^32 addresses which is more than 4 billion addresses. Till date, it is considered the primary Internet Protocol and carries 94% of Internet traffic.

Features of IPv4:

- Connectionless Protocol

- Allow creating a simple virtual communication layer over      diversified devices It requires less memory, and ease of      remembering addresses

- Already supported protocol by millions of devices

- Offers video libraries and conferences

IP version 6 

It is the most recent and advance version of the Internet Protocol. Internet Engineer Taskforce initiated it in early 1994. The design and development of that suite is now called IPv6.

This new IP address version is being deployed to fulfill the need for more Internet addresses. It was aimed to resolve issues which are associated with IPv4. With 128-bit address space, it allows 340 undecillion unique address space. IPv6 also called IPng (Internet Protocol next generation).

Features of IPv6:

- Hierarchical addressing and routing infrastructure

- Stateful and Stateless configuration

- Support for quality of service (QoS)

- An ideal protocol for neighboring node interactio

Binary Digits                     

A binary digit, or bit, is the smallest unit of information in a computer. It is used for storing information and has a value of true/false, or on/off. An individual bit has a value of either 0 or 1.

In mathematics and digital electronics, a binary number is a number expressed in the base 2 numeral system or binary numeral system, which uses only two symbols: typically "0" (zero) and "1" (one), which is generally used to store data and implement instructions in groups of bytes. The base-2 numeral system is a positional notation with a radix of 2. Each digit is referred to as a bit, or binary digit

Classes of IP Address             

With an IPv4 IP address, there are five classes of available IP ranges: Class A, Class B, Class C, Class D and Class E, while only A, B, and C are commonly used. Each class allows for a range of valid IP addresses, shown in the following table. Supports 16 million hosts on each of 127 networks.

Note: Ranges 127.x.x.x are reserved for the loopback or local host, for example, 127.0.0.1 is the loopback address. Range 255.255.255.255 broadcasts to all hosts on the local network.