What is an IP Address

In the early 80's many computer engineers faced a particular problem while communicating via computers over their intranet. The problem was related to the identity of the machine, which hindered communication across the network. This particular identity crisis was partly solved by the concept of client-server networking.  However, the concept was not robust enough to avoid identity infringement and the emergence of TCP/IP network suite changed the face of global networking by using the Internet protocol address.

The concept of having a 32 bit integers address is down to the reliability of TCP/IP suite. Engineers needed a robust identification or address which had to be unique for every computer over the world wide web. This address was termed as IP address or Internet Protocol address. Understanding IP addressIP address is a 32 bit integer which serves as an address of a device on a network. It is generally represented in the well known dot-based notation. This dot-based notation consist of decimal numbers which represent each bit of the IP address. The digital device break the decimal representation into hexadecimal, adding another layer of security. 

For an instance, the IP address 128.10.8.11 will be deciphered as 0x800A08B in hexadecimal. Now, this dot-based notation is further broken down to binary numbers, which is actually used by the devices to identify each other.    Every digital device on a network has its own IP address. Device or machine list includes servers, shared printers or fax machines, routers, and computers. At present, we are using IPv4 or Internet Protocol version 4. Understanding the use of IP addressBasically, it is just like our street address and is unique for every digital device over a network. This unique address helps the computers in identifying each other and communicating over the network. For an instance, when you log into your email account, you computer at that time is communicating with the server of the email service provider.

The server looks for identification such as email account, password and notes the IP address every time you login. Email service providers such as Google and Yahoo allow users to check their account activity which shows the IP address from where the user logged into his or her account. Every website has its corresponding IP address, like 216.239.51.99 is one of the IP addresses of Google. IP addresses are used for security reasons as well as anyone can track their geographical location if they know their IP address. IP address tracking is usually used for tracking any illicit activity over the network. Classification of IP addressThere are generally 4 classes of IP address such as Class A, B, C, and D. The class A IP address is from 1.0.0.0 to 127.255.255.255. Class B from 128.0.0.0 to 191..255.255.255, class C is from 192.0.0.0 to 223.255.255.255, and class D from 224.0.0.0 to 239.255.255.255. There are special IP addresses such as 0.0.0.0 and 255.255.255.255 etc.