What Is Subnetting?

When you're trying to get a bunch of people together, finding a venue that's big enough for everyone is challenging. What if we told you there was a way to fit even more people in the same space? Subnetting is like that: Subnetting also provides network security and privacy. It allows network administrators to configure network addressable IP ranges based on their requirements. That is the reason why subnetting is also called IP address planning. Subnetting IP addresses requires a thorough understanding of how IP addresses are structured and how subnetting works. What if we told you there was another way? The Internet is a vast, sprawling thing. It's so big that it can take much work to remember where you are and what address you're using. It's also big enough that there needs to be more space for everyone to have their IP address. So how do we keep the Internet from getting too crowded? By subnetting! Subnetting helps to reduce network traffic and conceals network complexity. It allocates a single network number over numerous local area network segments (LAN). Subnets were initially designed to solve the shortage of IP addresses over the Internet. Every IP address has a subnet mask. That's just one of the many things you can learn from this article. If you're unfamiliar with IP addresses, they're used in networks to identify individual devices on a network. They're like your home address. Each IP address corresponds to a single device on the web, and every appliance has its unique IP address. The subnet mask is like the zip code for an IP address. It tells you what part of the world (or which network) each device lives in. It also determines how many devices can be connected without slowing down the network, called "subnetting." The default gateway is basically like a mailing service that gets messages from one computer to another in another location. Still, unlike regular mail services, it only takes a little while and costs money!