
Each subnet is identified either by its Subnet ID or the subnet address with the Host ID set to. Four of the 256 possible subnets are shown connected to one router. Figure 3 shows the 172.16.0.0 network, with the third grouping as the Subnet ID. The Subnet ID is used by routers to determine the best route between subnetworks.

Additionally, the details of subnet segmentation within an organization remain local to that organization. A point-to-point subnet allows two devices to connect, while a data center subnet might be designed to connect many more devices.Įach organization is responsible for determining the number and size of the subnets it creates, within the limits of the address space available for its use. The size of a subnet depends on the connectivity requirements and the network technology employed. How do subnets work?Įach subnet allows its connected devices to communicate with each other, while routers are used to communicate between subnets. It is described in the formal document, Request for Comments 950, and is tightly linked to IP addresses, subnet masks and Classless Inter-Domain Routing ( CIDR) notation. Subnetting, the segmentation of a network address space, improves address allocation efficiency. This way, traffic doesn't have to flow through unnecessary routs, increasing network speeds. One goal of a subnet is to split a large network into a grouping of smaller, interconnected networks to help minimize traffic. Organizations will use a subnet to subdivide large networks into smaller, more efficient subnetworks. Each computer, or host, on the internet has at least one IP address as a unique identifier. The Internet Protocol (IP) is the method for sending data from one computer to another over the internet. More specifically, subnets are a logical partition of an IP network into multiple, smaller network segments.

A subnet, or subnetwork, is a segmented piece of a larger network.
