I'm currently pursuing my master's degree in cybersecurity, after earning my bachelor's in IT. Recently, I started thinking about NAT exhaustion and was wondering if anyone has actually encountered this issue in practice. I imagine it's more common in large enterprise environments, but I'm curious about how it's managed when it occurs, and what the real-world implications are.
1 Answer
In my experience, most organizations rely on Port Address Translation (PAT). I've seen issues like DHCP running out and problems with oversized subnets causing switches to struggle, but I've never personally witnessed NAT exhaustion.
I've yet to encounter DHCP exhaustion either. If that does happen, could you just create a second subnet? I mean, once you've planned your architecture, it's tough to just expand the existing one.