IP address is the most essential component for establishing the internet connectivity. There are various terminologies that are associated with this buzzing word, ‘internet’. NAT is one of them which stand for Network Address Translation. It involves the process of changing one IP address to another IP address. Now, most of us must be wondering, why such process takes place? Well, answer to this is a bit long one.

 

Now-a-days, IPv6 is used to generate a unique IP address for all the address devices connected to the internet. Also, it is a well known fact that a lot of devices are evolving these days which are getting connected to internet each day. So, it is difficult to generate an unique IP address for all the devices. In order to overcome such issue, the concept of NAT has been invented.

 

NAT (Network Address Translation) is a concept where an internet protocol can be assigned to each device connected to the internet. Before, exploring the idea of NAT in-depth, it is important to understand private and public IP address. Private IP address is not used for connecting to the internet. However, there are different ranges of private IP addresses. On the other hand, public IP address is used to establish the connection. Depending upon the functionality, NAT can be classified into different types such as dynamic NAT, static NAT and port address translation (PAT).

 

Usually, organizations have the computers and a LAN that use private addresses, but they cannot get an access to the internet. Thus, they but a set of public IP address and by employing NAT, they convert private IP address to public one. This ultimately avoids the hassle of assigning a unique IP address to all the devices. This is how the concept of NAT helps in availing better utilization of IP address.

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