self doubt - no. of possible subnet masks

Question

Let the given IP address be 200.1.15.255. How many subnet masks possible? Is it 12 or 11?

Comments

Didn't get your question. How can it be 11 or 12? Can you explain?

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Subnet mask depends on your network configuration, whether it's class B or C, and in how many subnets the network is divided. Subnet mask is independent of an IP address.

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EDIT:

Let the address be in CIDR and is a limited broadcast address.

So, the address can be represented as 200.1.00001111.11111111  (the last two representations are in binary form).

Then how many subnet masks are possible? I am having doubt whether 11111111.11111111.11111111.11111111 can be a valid subnet mask (of only one host) in this case?

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@Harsh Kumar If you are letting the address to be CIDR, then give a correct representation of IP address. How many bits are there in block Id?

btw, 255.255.255.255 can't be a valid subnet mask, bcoz in subnet mask host id bits should be set to 0. All 1 in subnet mask indicates all bits represents NID, ie.a network with no host. That's wrong. 

Answer 1

Considering this as Class C network. 200.1.15.255. So, first 3 Octet is Net ID part. Last Octet is Host Id part.

For subnetting we borrow bits from Host ID. So we can borrow 0 bit, 1 bit, 2 bit …… upto 8 bits. So total 9 subnet masks can be possible.

Note: I have considered that only continuous bits can be assigned to subnet bits.