COMPUTER NETWORKS

INNOVATIVE EXAMINATION
─

IT-A
1 RIYA AGRAWAL
4 ABHINAV BHANDARI
7 CHITVAN NAGAICH
64 NANDITA PATRA
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Problem Statement
There are around 500 employees in the office. Each employee is using a desktop computer and
we need to configure them in a Lan and assign them ip addresses. If we purchase a class C
address we will be able to address 256 hosts. If we purchase a class B address we can address
65536 hosts. We require only 500 addresses and it will be costly.
In the above situation give the solution that would provide us appropriate addresses and save cost
to the company.

Introduction
The Network Layer is the third layer of the OSI model. It handles the service requests from the
transport layer and further forwards the service request to the data link layer. The network layer
translates the logical addresses into physical addresses It determines the route from the source to
the destination and also manages the traffic problems such as switching, routing and controls the
congestion of data packets. The main role of the network layer is to move the packets from
sending host to the receiving host.

Network Addressing
Network Addressing is one of the major responsibilities of the network layer. Network addresses
are always logical, i.e., software-based addresses. A host is also known as end system that has
one link to the network. The boundary between the host and link is known as an interface.
Therefore, the host can have only one interface.
A router is different from the host in that it has two or more links that connect to it. When a
router forwards the datagram, then it forwards the packet to one of the links. The boundary
between the router and link is known as an interface, and the router can have multiple interfaces,
one for each of its links. Each interface is capable of sending and receiving the IP packets, so IP
requires each interface to have an address.
Each IP address is 32 bits long, and they are represented in the form of "dot-decimal notation"
where each byte is written in the decimal form, and they are separated by the period. An IP
address would look like 193.32.216.9 where 193 represents the decimal notation of first 8 bits of
an address, 32 represents the decimal notation of second 8 bits of an address.
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Classful Addressing
An IP address is 32-bit long. An IP address is divided into sub-classes:
1. Class A
2. Class B
3. Class C
4. Class D
5. Class E
An ip address is divided into two parts:
● Network ID: It represents the number of networks.
● Host ID: It represents the number of hosts.

Class Higher NET ID HOST ID No.of No.of Range

bits bits bits networks hosts per
network

A 0 8 24 27 224 0.0.0.0 to
127.255.255.2
55

B 10 16 16 214 216 128.0.0.0 to

191.255.255.2
55

C 110 24 8 221 28 192.0.0.0 to

223.255.255.2
55

D 1110 Not Not Not Not 224.0.0.0 to

Defined Defined Defined Defined 239.255.255.2
55

E 1111 Not Not Not Not 240.0.0.0 to

Defined Defined Defined Defined 255.255.255.2
55
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Proposed Solution
Subnetting
A subnetwork or subnet is a logical subdivision of an IP network. The practice of dividing a
network into two or more networks is called subnetting.Computers that belong to the same
subnet are addressed with an identical most-significant bit-group in their IP addresses. This
results in the logical division of an IP address into two fields: the network number or routing
prefix and the rest field or host identifier. The rest field is an identifier for a specific host or
network interface. Subnetting is the process of dividing one network into smaller networks.
Collectively, the smaller networks are referred to as subnetworks (or subnets), and the singular
subdivision is a subnetwork (more commonly referred to as a subnet). Every single computer
that is connected to a subnet shares an identical portion of the IP address. This shared
information is known as a routing prefix, and in IPV4 (Internet Protocol Version 4), the routing
prefix is called a subnet mask. The subnet mask is a "quad-dotted decimal representation".
Network Bits Subnet Mask Number of Subnets Number of Hosts

/16 255.255.0.0 0 65534

/17 255.255.128.0 2 (0) 32766

/18 255.255.192.0 4 (2) 16382

/19 255.255.224.0 8 (6) 8190

/20 255.255.240.0 16 (14) 4094

/21 255.255.248.0 32 (30) 2046

/22 255.255.252.0 64 (62) 1022

/23 255.255.254.0 128 (126) 510

/24 255.255.255.0 256 (254) 254

/25 255.255.255.128 512 (510) 126

/26 255.255.255.192 1024 (1022) 62

/27 255.255.255.224 2048 (2046) 30

/28 255.255.255.240 4096 (4094) 14

/29 255.255.255.248 8192 (8190) 6

/30 255.255.255.252 16384 (16382) 2

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We can use /23 subnet which will provide 126 subnets and each subnet will have 510 hosts such
that 500 computers will be easily addressed and there won’t be wastage of ip addresses. For
doing so subnet mask must be set as 255.255.254.0.

Advantages

● Subnetting increases the number of allowed hosts in the local area network.
● Subnetting decreases the volume of broadcast, hence minimize the number of network
traffic.
● Sub networks are easy to maintain and manage.
● Subnetting increases the flexibility of address.
● Network security can be readily employed between sub networks rather than employing it
in the whole network.

Disadvantages

● The process of subnetting is quite expensive.

● To perform subnetting process, we need a trained administrator.

Supernetting or CIDR
Supernetting is also known as CIDR (classless interdomain routing). Supernetting a TCP/IP
network address is the opposite of subnetting it. Supernetting in itself does not give you more
TCP/IP addresses; however, it provides larger single networks for use. Supernetting acts to
bridge the gap between a Class C network that is limited to 254 addresses and a Class B network
that is too large, with over 65,000 addresses.
Supernetting achieves this by making a single network that has your specified number of hosts
and corresponding supernet (like a subnet mask). A supernetted address will look like any other
TCP/IP address in dotted decimal format (XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX), but it will have a supernetted
subnet mask. This looks like a normal subnet mask, but the last octet is not 0 (however, the
leading octets of the supernet mask are still 255). Supernetted addresses will require a default
gateway that needs to be supernetted as well. Address ranges, or blocks, are important in
supernetting.
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Super Netting Class C:

CIDR Block Supernet Mask Number of Networks Number of Hosts

/17 255.255.128.0 128 32766

/18 255.255.192.0 64 16382

/19 255.255.224.0 32 8190

/20 255.255.240.0 16 4094

/21 255.255.248.0 8 2046

/22 255.255.252.0 4 1022

/23 255.255.254.0 2 510

/24 255.255.255.0 1 254

/25 255.255.255.128 Less than 1* 126

/26 255.255.255.192 Less than 1* 62

/27 255.255.255.224 Less than 1* 30

/28 255.255.255.240 Less than 1* 14

/29 255.255.255.248 Less than 1* 6

/30 255.255.255.252 Less than 1* 2

These ranges are scalable, helping you select how many networks and hosts you would like to
use. We can see that /24 CIDR block looks familiar, as that is really not a supernetted network
but a subnetted single Class C network with a standard 24-bit subnet.
We can use the /23 CIDR block which has 255.255.254.0 as supernet mask, with 2 networks and
510 hosts.

Advantages:
● Supernetting reduces the traffic of the network over the internet.
● Supernetting increases the speed of routing table lookup.
● As it is summarized the number of routing information entries into a single entry, the size
of the router’s memory table decreased, hence saving the memory space.
● Provision for the router to isolate the topology changes from the other routers.
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Disadvantages:
● The combination of blocks should be made in power 2 alternatively; if the three blocks
are required, then there must be assigned four blocks.
● While merging several entries into one, it lacks covering different areas.
● The whole network must exist in the same class.

Conclusion
● We have seen the process of subnetting and supernetting and also their advantages and
disadvantages.
● Subnetting and supernetting, both techniques are used to increase IP address availability
and decrease the depletion of IP address.
● As subnetting is quite expensive, supernetting would be an better alternative for the given
problem statement.

References
● https://www.pcwdld.com/intro-to-supernetting#wbounce-modal
● https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/classless-inter-domain-routing-cidr/
● https://www.cloudaccess.net/cloud-control-panel-ccp/157-dns-management/322-subnet-
masks-reference-table.html