An IP address is an address used to uniquely identify a device on an IP network.

The address
is made up of 32 binary bits, which can be divisible into a network portion and host portion
with the help of a subnet mask. The 32 binary bits are broken into four octets. You know that
each octet is 8 bits. Each octet is converted to decimal and separated by a period that is dot.
For this reason, an IP address is said to be expressed in dotted decimal format. Together, the
network number and the host number uniquely identify all hosts connected by way of the
Internet.

It is possible that the needs of a small, networked community, such as a LAN, could be
satisfied with just host addresses. However, network addresses are necessary for end
systems on di erent networks to communicate with each other. Routers are functioning at
level of network layer, and it use the network portion of the address to make routing decisions
and to facilitate communication between hosts that belong to di erent networks.

Unlike routers, humans find working with strings of 32 1s or 0s tedious and clumsy.
Therefore, 32-bit IP addresses are written using dotted-decimal notation. Each octet is
converted to decimal and then separated by decimal points, or dots.

The 32-bit IP address is divided into five sub-classes namely class A, B, C, D and E. Each of
these classes has a valid range of IP addresses.

 If the first bit of the first octet of an IP address is a binary 0, the address is a Class A
address. With the first bit being a 0, the lowest number that can be represented is
eight 0s, the equivalent decimal is 0. The highest number that can be represented is
0 and seven 1s, decimal 127. Any address that starts with a value between 0 and 127
in the first octet, it is a Class A address.

Class A addresses were intended to accommodate very large networks, so only the
first octet is used to represent the network number. The remaining three octets, or 24
bits to represent the host portion of the address. With 24 bits total, 224 combinations
are possible, yielding 16,777,216 possible addresses. Two of those possibilities, the
lowest and highest values, are reserved for special purposes. The low value is 24 0s,
 and the high value is 24 1s. Therefore, each Class A address can support up to
16,777,214 unique host addresses.

Why are two host addresses reserved for special purposes? Every network requires a
network number. A network number is an ID number that is used to refer to the entire
range of hosts when building routing tables. The address that contains all 0s in the
host portion is used as the network number and cannot be used to address an
individual node. 46.0.0.0 is a Class A network number. Similarly, every network
requires a broadcast address that can be used to address a message to every host on
a network. It is created when the host portion of the address has all 1s. For example,
a broadcast address for network 46.0.0.0 would be 46.255.255.255.

With almost 17 million host addresses available, a Class A network provides too
many possibilities for one company or campus to construct the complete network.
Although it is easy to imagine an enormous global network with that many nodes, the
hosts in such a network could not function as members of the same logical group.
Administrators require much smaller logical groupings to control broadcasts, apply
policies, and troubleshoot problems. Fortunately, a design of subnet mask allows
subnetting, which breaks a large block of addresses into smaller groups called
subnetworks.

 Class B addresses start with a binary 10 in the first 2 bits of the first octet. Therefore,
the lowest number that can be represented with a Class B address is 1 the seven 0s,
the equivalent decimal is 128. The highest number that can be represented is 10 and
remaining 6 ones, decimal 191. Any address that starts with a value in the range of
128 to 191 in the first octet is a Class B address.

Class B addresses were intended to accommodate medium-size networks. The first

two octets are used to represent the network number and the remaining two octets
or 16 bits to represent the host portion of the address. With 16 bits total,
216 combinations are possible, yielding 65,536 Class B addresses. Recall that two of
those numbers, the lowest and highest values, are reserved for special purposes.
 Therefore, each Class B address can support up to 65,534 hosts. Although it is
significantly smaller than the networks created by Class A addresses, a logical group
of more than 65,000 hosts is still unmanageable and impractical. Therefore, like
Class A networks, Class B addresses can be subnetted to improve e iciency.

 Class C addresses start with a binary 110 in the first 3 bits of the first octet. Therefore,
the lowest number that can be represented is 110 and the remaining five 0s, the
decimal is 192. The highest number that can be represented is 110 and five ones, the
decimal is 223.

Class C addresses were originally intended to support small networks. The first three
octets of a Class C address represent the network number. The last octet may be
used for hosts. One host octet yields 256 (28) possibilities. You know that the all-0s
network number and the all-1s broadcast address, so only 254 hosts may be
addressed on a Class C network. Whereas Class A and Class B networks prove
impossibly large without subnetting, Class C networks can impose an overly
restrictive limit on hosts.

The first 3 bits of a Class C address are always 110, so the remaining 21 bits are left
in the network portion of the address, resulting in 221 that is 2,097,152 Class C
networks. With 2,097,152 total network addresses containing 254 hosts each. Class
C addresses account for 12.5 percent of the Internet address space.

 Class D address begins with binary 1110 in the first octet. Therefore, the first octet
range for a Class D address is 1110 and the remaining four 0s to 1110 with four 1s, or
224 to 239.

Class D addresses are not used to address individual hosts. Instead, each Class D
address can be used to represent a group of hosts called a host group, or multicast
group.

For example, a router configured to run Enhanced Interior Gateway Routing Protocol
(EIGRP) joins a group that includes other nodes that are also running EIGRP. Members
 of this group still have unique IP addresses from the Class A, B, or C range, but they
also listen for messages addressed to any of the Class D addresses. For example it
may be 224.0.0.10 Therefore, a single routing update message can be sent to
224.0.0.10, and all EIGRP routers will receive it. A single message sent to several
select recipients is called a multicast. Class D addresses are also called multicast
addresses.

Every device on a logical network must process a broadcast, whereas only devices
configured to listen for a Class D address receive a multicast.

 The last classful address class is class E. In class E, the first octet of an IP address
begins with 1111, the address is a Class E address. Therefore, the first octet range for
Class E addresses is 11110000 to eight 1s, or in decimal 240 to 255. Class E
addresses are reserved for experimental purposes and should not be used to address
hosts or multicast groups.

Initially, IPV4 satisfies the requirement of identifying the device over the network. Over the
period, IPv4 has not been able to cope with the massive explosion in the quantity and range
of devices beyond simply mobile phones, desktop computers, and laptops. The original IP
address format was not able to handle the number of IP addresses being created.

To address this problem, IPv6 was introduced which is 128 bit long. This new standard
operates a hexadecimal format that means billions of unique IP addresses can now be
created. As a result, the IPv4 system that could support up to around 4.3 billion unique
numbers has been replaced by an alternative that, theoretically, o ers unlimited IP
addresses.

That is because an IPv6 IP address consists of eight groups that contain four hexadecimal
digits, which use 16 distinct symbols of 0 to 9 followed by A to F to represent values of 10 to
15.