Differences between IP Addresses and Data Link Addresses
Whenever you open a web page, it tells your computer to send a request for information or a ping. Your laptop receives this message and answers with a numerical IP address.
Your IP address also allows someone else to access the Internet from your computer, so it’s one of those secret Internet things that you need to know.
What is an IP Address?
An IP address (Internet Protocol address) is an identifier assigned to each computer and device connected to a TCP/IP network that is used to locate and identify the node in communication with other nodes on the network.
In other words, the IP address is an address bound to the network device, i.e., computer, via software.
In a Windows-based computer, there is a feature to configure the specific workstation’s IP address. This IP address is used to allow all network-aware programs, i.e., Internet Explorer, Netscape, Outlook, etc., to use this address when communicating with other hosts. The seventh layer in the OSI model has the IP addresses. Version 4 of the Internet Protocol (IPv4) defines an IP address as a 32-bit number.
[1] However, because of the growth of the Internet and the depletion of available IPv4 addresses, a new version of IP (IPv6), using 128 bits for the IP address, was developed in 1995,[2] and
[2] and standardised as RFC 2460 in 1998. Its deployment commenced in the mid-2000s and is ongoing. IP addresses are usually written and displayed in human-readable notations, such as 172.16.254.1 in IPv4, and 2001:db8:0:1234:0:567:8:1 in IPv6.
The IP address space is managed globally by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), and by five regional Internet registries (RIR) responsible in their designated territories for assignment to end users and local Internet registries, such as Internet service providers.
IANA has distributed IPv4 addresses to the RIRs in blocks of approximately 16.8 million. Each ISP or private network administrator assigns an IP address to each device connected to its network. Such assignments may be static (fixed or permanent) or dynamic, depending on its software and practices.
On the other hand, a data-link layer address uniquely identifies each physical network connection of a network device. Data-link addresses sometimes are referred to as physical or hardware addresses. Data-link addresses usually exist within a flat address space and have a pre-established and typically fixed relationship to a specific device.
What is a Data Link Address?
A data link address (DLA) is a host address used to link two networks together (link-layer address). The network administrators of two networks usually assign them to allow communication between them. Some examples of DLA are a network address, DNS name, IP address or MAC address.
The data link address is a hardware address which is unique to the network card installed on your PC. No two devices on a local network should ever have the same data link address. In the unlikely event, the two devices will have major communication problems. During manufacturing, the vendor “burns” a specific data link address into each network card’s ROM.
A data link address is not a MAC address. Data link addresses are used only when the user interface for networking is IPX/SPX, and Ethernet and Windows are IPX and use different data-link addresses. The default data link address for IPX and SPX networks is 10.0.0.0, but a range of addresses are available by using the subnet mask.
When the serial numbers have all been used, they start from the beginning, as it’s very unlikely anyone will buy two network cards from the same vendor and contain the same data link address.
Conclusion
So, to sum all that up, an IP address is a logical address that is configured via the operating system. In contrast, the Datalink address is a hardware address burnt into the network card’s ROM during the manufacturing process.
