Subnetting an IP Network can be done for a variety of reasons, including organization, use of different physical media (such as Ethernet, FDDI, WAN, etc.), preservation of address space, and security. The most common reason is to control network traffic. In an Ethernet network, all nodes on a segment see all the packets transmitted by all the other nodes on that segment. Performance can be adversely affected under heavy traffic loads, due to collisions and the resulting retransmissions. A router is used to connect IP networks to minimize the amount of traffic each segment must receive.
Applying a subnet mask to an IP address allows you to identify the network
and node parts of the address. The network bits are represented by the 1s in the
mask, and the node bits are represented by the 0s. Performing a bitwise
logical AND operation between the IP address and the
subnet mask results in the Network Address or Number.
For example, using our test IP address and the default Class B subnet mask, we
get:
10001100.10110011.11110000.11001000 140.179.240.200 Class B IP Address 11111111.11111111.00000000.00000000 255.255.000.000 Default Class B Subnet Mask -------------------------------------------------------- 10001100.10110011.00000000.00000000 140.179.000.000 Network Address
Default subnet masks: