2.6 Summary

This chapter discussed the issues in designing an efficient addressing, naming, and configuration model for your network. Specifically, the following topics were covered:

• Each device on a TCP/IP network must have a unique IP address that universally identifies it. IPv4 provides for several classes of address, but this rigid mechanism is wasteful. IPv6 provides a future-proof addressing scheme but is not widely implemented today.

• Decide at the outset if there will be a requirement for public network connectivity, such as the Internet. This will influence your decision on whether to choose a private or public IP addressing model. In either case choose the most appropriate class of IP address to cope with current demands and future growth. Make allowances for the fact that a number of IP addresses have special applications and cannot be used. If you opt for public access, make sure you use registered addresses via your ISP or nearest IANA authority.

• A number of organizations may have chosen to implement private addressing schemes to build their intranets. Subsequent changes in those organizations may now force them to provide public interfaces to resources such as the Internet. NAT has a valuable role in network renumbering; it can greatly reduce the amount of renumbering required or even negate it entirely. NAT offers static or dynamic address translation, enabling unregistered private networks to communicate freely with the Internet. NAT, however, is not completely transparent and may not cope with some applications that rely upon embedded IP addresses. Performance...