hii everyone... my organization is using class B address without subnetting... n that too not the private ones...... apart frm generating huge amount of broadcast traffic... does it pose any security threat? i'd like to kno... Secondly shall i subnet that network id or instead shift to class c network id... well my organization is havin 55 comps n printers.... thanks

amount of broadcast traffic is never determined by the ip subnet. In other words you can have a class c with no dns/wins and it will generate a huge amount of broadcasts since that is the only way for name resolution. Concerning your second question, why are you concerned? You can have 55 devices on a Class A network. You don't have enough devices to be concerned about subnets. What you should be concerned about it the network topology. How many switches are cascaded off other switches? That is the usual problem with most networks Now neither of these questions address the subject line of this post. Are you using public class B addresses? If so you do need to change this to private since using public will bite you in the butt one day. 'tis the season to be of good cheer. Wishing one and all happy times with family and friends.

thnx wanderer.... :), well, but, i went thru several net postings, n it was mentioned subnetting is done to reduce broadcast traffic, so u mean if we have a properly configured dns server/wins server, there's no possibility of broadcasting traffic... and, can u tell how can using a public network id in a private network bite my butt, i'd jus like to kno the possible risks.... thnx again...

Broadcast domains become of interest when you have 100 to 1000's of devices. Smart folks start using vlans long before broadcasts become a factor limiting network traffic. When you get in the range of 5-10,000 devices then you get into subnetting combined with vlans. using public ip gets to be an issue when you want to open your network and do web hosting, using a dmz or bring up a mail server. It is best to use private ip which is available in class c thru a. for example: 172.16.0.0 to 172.31.255.255 is private class b 'tis the season to be of good cheer. Wishing one and all happy times with family and friends.

thnx a ton ... wanderer.... :)