Networking Basics - TCP/IP Protocol Suite and IP Addressing

The Internet was developed to provide a communication network that could continue to function in wartime. Although the Internet has evolved in ways very different from those imagined by its architects, it is still based on the TCP/IP protocol suite. The design of TCP/IP is ideal for the decentralized and robust network that is the Internet. Many protocols used today were designed using the four-layer TCP/IP model. It is useful to know both the TCP/IP and OSI networking models. Each model offers its own structure for explaining how a network works but there is much overlap between the two. Without an understanding of both, a system administrator may not have sufficient insight into why a network functions the way it does.
Any device on the Internet that wants to communicate with other Internet devices must have a unique identifier. The identifier is known as the IP address because routers use a layer three protocol, the IP protocol, to find the best route to that device. IPv4, the current version of IP, was designed before there was a large demand for addresses. Explosive growth of the Internet has threatened to deplete the supply of IP addresses. Subnetting, Network Address Translation (NAT) and private addressing are used to extend IP addressing without exhausting the supply. Another version of IP known as IPv6 improves on the current version providing a much larger address space, integrating or eliminating the methods used to work with the shortcomings of IPv4.
In addition to the physical MAC address, each computer needs a unique IP address, sometimes called logical address, to be part of the Internet. There are several methods of assigning an IP address to a device. Some devices always have a static address, while others have a temporary address assigned to them every time they connect to the network. When a dynamically assigned IP address is needed, the device can obtain it using several methods.
For efficient routing to occur between devices, other issues must be resolved. For example, duplicate IP addresses can stop efficient routing of data.

Từ khóa: IP Addressing, TCP/IP Protocol, Networking basics, mạng cơ bản, kỹ thuật mạng, công nghệ mạng, Cisco Networking