Browsing by Author "Asare Erasmus"

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    The Impact Of Subnetting And Supernetting On Tcp/Ip Network
    (KNUST, 2018-06) Asare Erasmus
    The purpose of this study is to identify the impact of subnetting and supernetting on TCP/IP Networks. Subnetting was introduced with RFC 950 for more efficient usage of IP addresses. Subnetting creates supplementary network IDs at the expense of host IDs. The inverse of subnetting is supernetting which creates more host IDs at the expense of network IDs. This study used network simulations in GNS3 and Wireshark application to capture packets on the simulated networks for exploration. The following parameters were measured: jitter, latency, broadcast, efficient use of Internet Protocol (IP) addresses and size of routing tables. The study was carried out with 410 computers placed on a single Class B network. The network was later subnetted into four subnets. Again, two Class C networks were supernetted with the same number of computers. The idea was to find out the network latency, jitter and speed by pinging. The results were used to determine the efficacy of each of the networks. The subnetted network was further configured with Variable Length Subnet Masks and routing protocols to verify limitations set on routing protocols. Based on the findings, subnetting showed up to have very high jitter and latency during cross-subnets transmissions and very less jitter and latency during packets transmission within a single subnet. Moreover, the subnetted network conserved IP addresses and had a reduced broadcast size as compared to that of the non-subnetted and supernet which were very high. However, subnetting caused bloated routing tables and no support for classful routing protocols using Variable Length Subnet Masks. Supernetting on the other hand, reduced the size of routing tables and conserved IP addresses as well.