What is an IP?

Online database services use IPs to identify or authenticate users who access their products, rather than issuing passwords to users.  To do this, user IPs must be registered with the database service. When a user logs into the service the incoming IP is checked and verified for authorization, and access is either provided or denied as appropriate.

What does the term "IP" stand for?

IP refers to "Internet Protocol".  An IP address is the unique number assigned to each computer that resides on the Internet.  The IP is a number and takes the form of:
xxx.xxx.xxx.* or xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx-xxx
x = a number
* = a range of numbers from 0-256


Host versus Network

There are two parts to every IP address, the network part and the host part.  Each IP address number is a decimal representation of an 8 bit binary number, therefore it can only range in decimal values from 0 -255.

The "Network" Part

The network IP uniquely identifies an organization. Depending upon the size of the organization, it may have one or more Class B or Class C addresses.
Class C address [ xxx.xxx.xxx.* ] represents up to 256 computers.
Class B address [ xxx.xxx.* ] represents up to 256 times 256 (65,536) computers.

The "Host" Part

The remaining portion of an IP address is used to identify specific computers within an organization. This is sometimes referred to as a Class D address.
Class D address [ xxx.xxx.xxx.# ] represents a single computer.
Class D address [ xxx.xxx.xxx.3-3 ] represents several individual computers within a Class C network.