User:Pavithrans/Addressing Schemes

Addressing Schemes
We look at 3 ways of addressing, coming from bottom layer the order is


 * MAC Address
 * IP Address
 * Domain Name/ Address/Location

Readablity
The most readable (human) of all the three addresses is the Domain names, they can easily be remembered. Domain names when loooked up in a DNS server would give and IP address which when looked up in the final router should lead to the MAC address which we could atleast assume ( if not spoofed ) as a valid unique identifier for the computer.

Direct access
With an IP address one can directly contact the computer instead of using domain name service, it removes the extra work of address resolution.

Physical Connection
With a MAC address the ethernet frame could reach the destination, its raw and is the fastest way provided you are one same physical network and you dont neeed any upper level protocols

Limited Identity
IP address on version 4 offers a very limited set of addresses which means there is a limited way of contacting a machine directly, we use Network Adddress Translation (NAT) instead. The version 6 solves the issue by making the address space 128 bits in version 6 from 32 of version 4.