suppose you have IP

10.100.1.1

100.1.1.1

172.16.2.1

192.168.1.10

 Now tel me can you understand  how many Host and network ...?

 some question  now in your mind

1 What is valid IP

2  how many host in all IP

3  how many network in all IP

4 what the Subnetmask

Ans :- too understand all these thing we use CLASS





Class A Address

The first bit of the first octet is always set to 0 (zero). Thus the first octet ranges from 1 – 127, i.e.
Class A Addresses Class A addresses only include IP starting from 1.x.x.x to 126.x.x.x only. The IP range 127.x.x.x is reserved for loopback IP addresses.

The default subnet mask for Class A IP address is 255.0.0.0 which implies that Class A addressing can have 126 networks (27-2) and 16777214 hosts (224-2).
Class A IP address format is thus: 0NNNNNNN.HHHHHHHH.HHHHHHHH.HHHHHHHH

Class B Address

An IP address which belongs to class B has the first two bits in the first octet set to 10, i.e.
Class B Addresses Class B IP Addresses range from 128.0.x.x to 191.255.x.x. The default subnet mask for Class B is 255.255.x.x.
Class B has 16384 (214) Network addresses and 65534 (216-2) Host addresses.
Class B IP address format is: 10NNNNNN.NNNNNNNN.HHHHHHHH.HHHHHHHH

Class C Address

The first octet of Class C IP address has its first 3 bits set to 110, that is:
Class C Addresses Class C IP addresses range from 192.0.0.x to 223.255.255.x. The default subnet mask for Class C is 255.255.255.x.
Class C gives 2097152 (221) Network addresses and 254 (28-2) Host addresses.
Class C IP address format is: 110NNNNN.NNNNNNNN.NNNNNNNN.HHHHHHHH

Class D Address

Very first four bits of the first octet in Class D IP addresses are set to 1110, giving a range of:
Class D Addresses Class D has IP address rage from 224.0.0.0 to 239.255.255.255. Class D is reserved for Multicasting. In multicasting data is not destined for a particular host, that is why there is no need to extract host address from the IP address, and Class D does not have any subnet mask.

Class E Address

This IP Class is reserved for experimental purposes only for R&D or Study. IP addresses in this class ranges from 240.0.0.0 to 255.255.255.254. Like Class D, this class too is not equipped with any subnet mask.

next slide.... Class_less Subnetting