Working on computers and networking for over a decade there is one skill set that I recommend anyone who works on computers to know. This skill set is the “Power of Two”. The powers of two is an import skill to master. Mastering this skill will help when subnetting, supernetting and writing access lists or programs.
Since computers communicate digitally it interprets data in zeros and ones. This is why knowing your powers of twos will help. For example. If you are subnetting you can use the power of two to determine how many bits to borrow for hosts and networks quickly and to find out what increments to use when subnetting or writing access lists.
Below is a list of the power of twos that are commonly used when working in a network environment. The list contains 2 to the power of which is 1 down to 2 to the power of 32 which is 4294967296.
- 20 1
- 21 2
- 22 4
- 23 8
- 24 16
- 25 32
- 26 64
- 27 128
- 28 256
- 29 512
- 210 1024
- 211 2048
- 212 4096
- 213 8192
- 214 16384
- 215 32768
- 216 65536
- 217 131072
- 218 262144
- 219 524288
- 220 1048576
- 221 2097152
- 222 4194304
- 223 8388608
- 224 16777216
- 225 33554432
- 226 67108864
- 227 134217728
- 228 268435456
- 229 536870912
- 230 1073741824
- 231 2147483648
- 232 4294967296
Once you have learned the powers of two. You should find it much faster and easier to get the work done with subnetting and writing access lists since you will be able to quickly identify ranges and how many bits it will take to perform the work.
You can check my previous post TCP/IP Subnetting if you need a refresher in TCP/IP subnetting.
I would like to give some credit to Todd Lammle who explained that knowing the Powers of Two in his CCNA Study Guide. He gives details instructions on how to subnet quickly and efficiently. I recommend his book and you can get it cheap on Amazon.com for a reasonable price of $40.00.
I hope that this helps many of those who may have been struggling with Binary Math and learning how to subnet.
The Powers of Two’s come in handy when working on math. It helped me get a good Kudo’s in my Algebra Class.