IP address fundamentals and applications

Private IP Address

The use of a private IP address on a business computer network has a number of advantages, one being an improved network security as well as a corporate social responsibility of conserving public addressing space. These IP addresses are commonly used on local networks and are good for businesses that share data as well as voice information.

The company's computer network will not connect to the internet with this local network connection. Likewise, computers out of the network will be unable to connect directly to a device with a private IP. This is will adequately solve the issue of lack of IP addresses in a public network such as the internet as well as provide the company the flexibility of creating enough IP addresses. According to Cisco Systems (2004),there are numerous networks that exist alongside public ones and it is not just practical to use any IP address. Therefore, RFC 1918 sets 3 IP addresses blocks specifically for private use: in class A range, between 10.0.0.0 to 10.255.255.255 RFC 1918 internal address range, in class B range, RFC 1918 internal address range between 172.16.0.0 to 172.31.255.255 and in class C range, RFC 1918 internal address range between 192.168.0.0 to 192.168.255.255. These are not included in the internet connectivity and are immediately discarded as private addresses by internet routers.

The company will benefit from private addressing in a number of ways including, variety of access technologies, confidentiality and security from the public network, a more cost effective than router-based VPNs, ease in addition of backup circuits and provision of quality VoIP circuits as well as fast connectivity.

IPv6 Addresses

The other solution for the company would be to adopt IPv6 Addressing. The innovation behind this addressing is in the size, 128 bits! By 128 bits. This means the availability of 2128 addresses estimated at 1038 addresses or greater. These addresses are unique and the company can benefit by assigning them. The management of this addressing is outlined by RFC 1881 which specifying the management of IPv6 addressing space in the interest of in the Internet community and that is the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) (Network Working Group, 1995). The IANA bases the management of IPv6 addressing space on recommendation from the Internet Architecture Board (IAB) as well as the Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG). The company therefore will acquire addresses from either regional or local registries that have the responsibility of allocating address allocations to network service providers, sub-regional registries, individuals and organizations.