CompTIA Network+ (N10-007) — Question 576

A network administrator needs to bring a new building online that houses multiple departments. The departments vary in size, with the smallest having 25 hosts and the largest having 140 hosts. When designing the addressing scheme for the new building, which of the following should the network administrator use lo limit the number of wasted IP addresses?

Answer options

• A. Public IPs
• B. Private IPs
• C. DHCP
• D. VLSM
• E. Reserved IPs

Correct answer: D

Explanation

The correct answer is D, VLSM (Variable Length Subnet Masking), which allows the network administrator to create subnets of different sizes based on the number of hosts required by each department, thereby reducing IP wastage. Options A and B (Public and Private IPs) do not address the issue of subnetting and IP address allocation efficiency. Option C, DHCP, is for dynamic IP address assignment and does not inherently reduce IP wastage. Option E, Reserved IPs, is not a valid method for optimizing address usage.