What is the purpose of NAT in a network?

What is the purpose of NAT in a network?

The purpose of NAT (Network Address Translation) in a network is to translate private IP addresses to public IP addresses and vice versa. This allows multiple devices within a private network to share a single public IP address, conserving the limited number of available public IP addresses. NAT also provides a level of security by hiding the internal IP addresses from external networks, making it more difficult for unauthorized access to the network.