D-Link DES-3326S manual IP Addresses

DES-3326S Layer 3 Fast Ethernet Switch User’s Guide

•Subnet – a portion of a network sharing a particular network address.

•Subnet mask – a 32-bit number used to describe which portion of a Network Address refers to the subnet and which portion refers to the host. Subnet masks have the form xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx.

•Interface – a network connection

•IP Interface – another name for subnet.

•Network Address – the resulting 32-bit number from a bitwise logical AND operation performed between an IP address and a subnet mask.

•Subnet Address – another name for network address.

IP Addresses

The Internet Protocol (IP) was designed for routing data between network sites. Later, it was adapted for routing between networks (referred to as “subnets”) within a site. The IP defines a way of generating a unique number that can be assigned each network in the internet and each of the computers on each of those networks. This number is called the IP address.

IP addresses use a “dotted decimal” notation. Here are some examples of IP addresses written in this format:

1.210.202.204.205

2.189.21.241.56

3.125.87.0.1

This allows IP address to be written in a string of 4 decimal (base 10) numbers. Computers can only understand binary (base 2) numbers, and these binary numbers are usually

Switch Management and Operating Concepts 81