Chapter 3
Chapter 3
SUBNETTING A NETWORK
Imagine a small company whose network looks like below. It has one Java Developer (JD), one
software tester, one HR personnel and one network administrator. If it is assigned the IP address
range from 192.168.10.1 to 192.168.10.255.
After one year, the company has grown to three Java Developers, three software testers and a
dedicated HR team. It also has moved into Remote Infrastructure Management( RIM) and has a
Network Operation Center (NOC) and Security Operation Center (SOC). There are 15 computers
in the network which looks like below.
On the image below, the machine “JD1” sends a packet to machine “Testing3”. We can see
here that for communication between machines “JD1: and “Testing3” other machines have also
been disturbed. This affects the performance of the network.
For this reason, we should subnet the network. It may be divided into three subnets as shown
below, each for HR, Java Development and OC departments.
To create a subnet, we need to have proper planning as to how many subnets we need and how
many we may need in the future. Presently, we need three subnets. The number of subnets
should always be calculated in the powers of 2.
2 to the power of 1 = 2
2 to the power of 2 = 4
This satisfies our requirement. So we need to take two bits from the host portion of the IP
address. 192.168.10.1 to 192.168.10.255 is the address range available to us with subnet mask
255.255.255.0, Writing the subnet mask in the binary notation, it is
The first 24 bits are network bits and the last eight bits are host bits. To create three subnets, we
need to take two bits from the host portion of the address as explained above.
Four subnets which can be created from the above subnet mask are,
Since we require only three subnets, we will create the first three subnets. The first subnet (
192.168.10.1 to 192.168.10.63 ) comprises of Java Developers and Software testers. The
commands are as shown below on the interface.
Router(config)#int fa 0/0
Router(config-if)#ip add 192.168.10.1 255.255.255.192
Router(config-if)#no shut
If you go to any machine on this subnet and look at its IP address, it will be like below.
Now the subnet for the Human Resource Department ( 192.168.10.128 to 192.168.10.191 ) .
This will be like below.
Router(config)#int fa 1/0
Router(config-if)#ip add 192.168.10.129 255.255.255.192
Router(config-if)#no shut
Router(config)#int fa 0/1
Router(config-if)#ip add 192.168.10.65 255.255.255.192
Router(config-if)#no shut