As technology develops, more and more IP addresses are needed in the information technology sector, both to keep up with business needs and to accommodate individual preferences. Subnetting was developed as a solution to the problem of having to give out unique Internet Protocol (IP) addresses to every network node.
Heavy traffic can slow down a network. Subnetting allows you to organize your network’s nodes in advance, improving its administration, architecture, and overall efficiency. Here are some of the many arguments in support of subnetting that we find particularly compelling:
Reduce network congestion
By limiting data transfer to only those devices within a given subnet, subnetting helps keep things running smoothly. You may ease the strain on your network and improve traffic flow by cleverly positioning subnets.
The question is, what happens to a vast network if there are no subnets? Without switches, all PCs and servers on the network would receive broadcast packets and have to reroute them to their respective ports manually. Congestion rises, network efficiency drops, and response times lengthen.
When a router is used to forward data across subnets, only data that needs to be routed is forwarded; no broadcast traffic or unnecessary data is sent. The decreased traffic inside each subnet allows for faster data transfer rates overall, relieving stress on the network as a whole.
Strengthening the safety of networks
Subnets allow you to restrict users’ access to specific resources more finely. The departmental example shows how simple it is to prohibit salespeople from viewing sensitive engineering drawings and to prevent engineers from viewing sensitive sales data stored on a separate file server.
The division of a network into subnets also helps to contain security issues. Due to the unique boundaries of subnets, you can implement controls to restrict communication between them, lowering your vulnerability to security breaches.
Enhanced network effectiveness
When there’s too much traffic on a network, it can grind to a halt, just like on a highway. When there is a lot of traffic being delivered to all devices at once, network congestion can prevent certain packets from reaching their destination. By keeping broadcasts localized at the subnet level rather than distributing them over the entire network, subnetting helps to lessen the burden on the network’s bandwidth.
creating meaningful sub-groups
Subnetting allows for neat divisions inside a network. If you have a sales team, a marketing group, and an engineering dept, each of them may have its subnet. You might also partition your network by floors or construct individual subnetworks for devices like VoIP phones, servers, and workstations. Also, you wouldn’t have to re-cable a ton of networking equipment to make a change; your conceptually distinct networks would act almost as if they were physically separate.
Final Thoughts
Subnetting is a valuable feature for networks, and it’s also easy to set up and learn. Its uses range from making networks faster to safeguarding sensitive data. There is no justification for a company’s network to not know how to launch a subnet considering all the benefits.