INTRODUCTION TO IP ADDRESSES FOR BEGINNERS
Hey learners, we’ll be discussing in this blog about an interesting part in Networking. Yeah! that’s “IP addresses”. IP address play a major role in computer networking. This would allow data exchange within a network. With no more further delay, let us jump into the topic.
Let us begin this with a real time example. If you want to send a greeting card to your friend, say “Tom”, through post on his birthday who is residing in another country. But we don’t know where Tom is residing. Will the card reach Tom correctly if we don’t mention his address? The answer is “No”, right? Hence the resident address plays a major role in delivering the letter or card whatever may be. Likewise IP address plays a major role in delivering information between networks.
If we want to send an information from one computer to another, the computer network doesn’t know where the packet should be sent if there is no address. Hence like Tom’s address, each and every computer has an IP address.
IP address is the unique address assigned to a device, to identify that device on the internet or a local network.
IP : “Internet Protocol”
The “Internet Protocol” is a set of instructions/rules governing the format of data sent over the internet or local network.
The IP addresses are the identifiers of a device that allows the information to be sent between devices on a network. The internet needs to differentiate devices to send information to a particular device. IP provides a way of doing this by assigning unique IP address for every devices and forms an essential part of how internet works.
It does not matter whether it is a smaller network, such as a home computer network, or the entire Internet. The IP address ensures the delivery of data to the correct receiver.
It is possible for a single IP address to address multiple receivers (broadcasting) or for a device to respond to multiple IP addresses. However, it must be ensured that each IP address is assigned only once within the network.
Now, here comes a question. What is an IP and how an IP address look like?
Well, an IP Address is a string of numbers, separated by periods(.). They range from “0.0.0.0” to “255.255.255.255” (IPv4 address). There are two methods of addressing IP : “IPv4 and IPv6”.
Each number in the set can range from “0 to 255” which is basically an octet. Hence, the IP address can be said in other words that, it is a set of four octets separated by periods.
These IP address are not randomly assigned. They are mathematically produced and allocated by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), a division of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).
There are different types of IP addresses : Public, Private, Static, Dynamic, Consumer IP addresses.
Keep learning :)
