IP Subnetting Simplified – Why Do We Need It?
Subnetting could be explained as a way to identify a network inside of another one without having to sort through all of the IP addresses. Imagine you are in an office building that has 3 floors. On each floor of the building is a corresponding network. Now on the corresponding one imagine it being broken down further into 2 smaller networks. We will call the networks on floor 1 – A and B; the networks on floor 2 – C and D; on floor 3 – E and F. Subnetting allows the data to be circulated to the correct set of hosts within a network without extra money spent on more equipment. Picture a grid that has 4 blocks with their rows and boxes numbered. You are then asked to shade x amount of boxes and y amount of rows in each block. Consider now that each row is a network and each box is a host. If a box is out of sequence then it does not belong to that network. Subnetting eliminates the need to number each box. If you send data to row 1 and the subnet allows x amount of boxes, then x amount
