Practice Question (Domain 4- Networking)
A global financial institution is restructuring its network infrastructure to improve security and optimize bandwidth utilization. They are migrating from a flat network to a hierarchical model with multiple subnets. Their current Class B network address is 172.16.0.0/16. The security team has mandated that each department (Accounting, Sales, Marketing, and Research) must have its own subnet. Furthermore, they require a minimum of 500 usable host addresses per subnet. The network engineers are considering several subnet mask options. Which of the following subnet masks BEST meets the organization's requirements while minimizing wasted IP addresses? a) 255.255.254.0 b) 255.255.255.0 c) 255.255.255.128 d) 255.255.255.192