Introduction Understanding networking is a fundamental part of configuring complex environments on the internet. This has implications when trying to communicate between servers efficiently, developing secure network policies, and keeping your nodes organized. In a previous guide found on myip.com, we went over some basic networking terminology. You should look through that guide to make sure you are familiar with the concepts presented there. In this article, we will discuss some more specific concepts that are involved with designing or interacting with networked computers. Specifically, we will be covering network classes, subnets, and CIDR notation for grouping IP addresses. Understanding IP addresses Every location or device on a network must be addressable. This is simply a term that means that it can be reached by referencing its designation under a predefined system of addresses. In the normal TCP/IP model of network layering, this is handled on a few different layers, but usually, when we refer to an address on a network, we are talking about an IP address. IP addresses allow network resources to be reached through a network interface. If one computer wants to communicate with another computer, it can address the information to the remote computer's IP address. Assuming that the two computers are on the same network, or that the different computers and devices in between can translate requests across networks, the computers should be able to reach each other and send information. Each IP address must be unique on its own network. Networks can be isolated from one another, and they can be bridged and translated to provide…