Trying to understand what a subnet mask is in a networking crash course for work training. Please help 🙏🏼
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An IP address describes 2 things: a network, and a specific host on that network. You can think of it like a first and last name, which describes a family and a specific person in that family. The subnet mask is like the space between the first and last name. It specifies which part belongs to the family, and which part belongs to the individual. John Doe is a specific individual John in the family Doe. If we move the space all the way to the left so that the name is “J Ohndoe” you’ll notice that now there are only 26 unique names available for members of the Ohndoe family. If we move the space all the way to the right so the name is “Johndo E”, we can come up with a lot of individual names but only 26 possible families. The subnet mask is used like the space so that we can adapt to situations where we either need a lot of unique individuals and only a few families, or else a lot of families and each family only has a few individuals.
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