#What does bia stand for cisco mac address registration
These MAC prefixes are assigned to each organization or vendor by the IEEE Registration Authority Committee. The first three octets are used as the OUI or Organisationally Unique Identifier.It is divided into six octets, and each octet contains 8 bits. It is 12 digits or 6-byte hexadecimal number, which is represented in colon-hexadecimal notation format.So, let's understand how it is configured and what format is selected.
We can understand this example with the below image: Format of MAC addressĪs we have already discussed in the above section, we cannot assign the MAC address to the device's NIC it is preconfigured by the manufacturers. If device A sends a data frame to the address 00000ABB28FC, the switch will fail to deliver this frame to the destination, as it has two recipients of this data frame. The NIC of devices B and C have the same MAC address. The MAC addresses of these devices are 11000ABB28FC, 00000ABB28FC, and 00000ABB28FC, respectively. Suppose three devices A, B, and C are connected to a network through a switch. If a LAN network has two or more devices with the same MAC address, that network will not work. Why should the MAC address be unique in the LAN network? We have the IP address to identify the device through different networks, we still need a MAC address to find the devices on the same network. On the other hand, the IP addresses are used on layer 3 and help identify the devices on different networks. The MAC address works on layer 2 and helps identify the devices within the same broadcast network (such as the router). When we request a page to load on the internet, the request is responded and sent to our IP address.īoth MAC and IP addresses are operated on different layers of the internet protocol suite. The answer to this question is that every mac address is assigned to the NIC of a hardware device that helps to identify a device over a network. Reason to have both IP and MAC addresses.Īs we already had the IP address to communicate a computer to the internet, why we need the MAC address.