What is NAT ?Network Address Translation (NAT) is a process of converting single IP address space into global one. It was introduced overall to prevent IPv4 address space exhaustion. Generally NAT does it work on a router or firewall simply interconnecting two networks. From NAT many devices can be connected to the intranet through a single public address.
Moreover for networking systems, NAT provides double feature of address translation and security. However NAT comes with advantages as well as disadvantages. In certain scenarios it can be useful but can be definitely problematic in others.
In this article, I will be mentioning about 6 Advantages and Disadvantages of Network Address Translation | Limitations & Benefits of Network Address Translation. From this post you
will know the pros and cons of using NAT.
Let's get started,
Advantages of Network Address Translation
1. Cost Savings
When using NAT with private IP addresses, the organizations
don't need to purchase IP address for each and every computer out there. Same IP
address can be used for multiple computers. Thus, this can lead to significant
cost reduction.
2. Address Conserving
When the user uses NAT overload, NAT
allows preserving the IPv4 address space by allowing the privatization of
intranets. This especially happens through the process of Intranet
Privatization. In this process all the addresses are saved by multiple
applications at the port level.
3. Flexible Connection
By implementing multiple
tools, backup tools and load balancing tools, NAT can overall increase the
flexibility and reliability of the network. This happens when establishing to
the public network or any other network connection.
4. Consistent Network
NAT
provides a consistent network addressing scheme. Whenever there is a use of
public IP address, there should be proper address space assigned. This is
because if the network is enlarged, more of the IP address will be required.
5.
Network Security
All the original source and destination address in NAT is
hidden completely. Unless the user wants to, the hosts inside the NAT cannot be
reached by hosts on other networks. Therefore, NAT provides additional layer of
network security.
6. Private Addressing
NAT has its own private IPv4 addressing
system even if you move to a new public addressing scheme. Al though if you
change the Internet Service Provider, the changes in the internal address will
be prevented.
Disadvantages of Network Address Translation
1. Decreased Performance
Whenever a guest
makes a request to a remote server, it will make sure that the connection
belongs to the NAT router. However some hosts implement security mechanisms on
how many requests to be accepted. If the defining number exceeds, further
requests will not be responded. This can create performance degrades especially
in real time protocols such as VoIP.
2. Application Usage
Since hosts inside the
network is unreachable at times, some applications tends to have compatibility
issues with NAT. These applications depend on end to end functionality which the
network fails to supply.
3. Protocol Usage
Since the value inside the headers
are changed in NAT, tunneling protocols such as IPSec can be complicated to be
used. Whenever the values inside the headers are modified, the integrity checks
are interfered causing them to fail.
4. Service Usage
Most often when using NAT,
services that require TCP or UDP are affected making them unstable. Incoming
packets will have problems reaching their destinations. The only way to achieve
them is by configuring NAT router.
5. Memory Usage
NAT needs to examine all the
incoming and outgoing data packets converting local and global IP addresses.
This makes all the translation details to be stored inside the memory. Thus, lots
of memory as well as processor is consumed by the NAT.
6. Troubleshooting
Always
when using NAT, the end to end traceability slowly reduces. In here the IP
addresses are changed constantly over multiple NAT hops. This makes
troubleshooting more difficult or almost impossible especially in remote
locations.
Network Address Translation includes certain benefits and drawbacks. Through this post you will know the 6 advantages and disadvantages of NAT.
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