Design a functional TCP/IP Solution

To determine the appropriate TCP/IP infrastructure, you must evaluate your Internet accessibility needs, the use of routers, and public IP address availability. To allow peer-to-peer communication, all hosts in a TCP/IP network require unique IP addresses. IP 4.0 supports a 32-bit address structure, publicly administered by a standards body (IETF), which can be used to implement both public and private address structures. The following four factors must be taken into consideration when designing a functional IP network:

1. The IP address and mask configuration
2. The addressing structures for private network operation
3. The addressing structures to allow subnet routing
4. A methodology for a consistent design of IP networks

This lesson will review IP addressing. Future lessons will look at other essential aspects of designing with TCP/IP.

Each TCP/IP host is identified by a logical IP address. This address is unique for each host that communicates by using TCP/IP. Because IP addresseses identify devices on a network, you must assign a unique IP address to each device on the network. The standard for IP addressing is referred to as IP version 4.0 (v4). The standard uses a 32-bit address field and 32-bit subnet mask field. The following Slide Show covers the essentials of IP addressing.

When using class-based addresses and VLSM, you cannot decrease the number of bits that determine the network ID below the number that is assigned to the default subnet mask. The following table lists and describes the RFCs pertaining to subnet masks.