Session 7: Representation of network addresses

In previous sessions you have learned how to recognise IP addresses and MAC addresses. In this session you are going to take a closer look at how these addresses are represented. You will be looking at two different number bases – binary and hexadecimal – and how they can represent the addresses used in network communications. Then you’ll move on to have a closer look at subnet masks.

By the end of this session, you will be able to:

• use the binary and hexadecimal number base systems and convert between different number bases using a calculator
• express a subnet mask in Classless Inter-Domain Routing (CIDR) notation
• recognise the role of CIDR in the scalability of communication networks.