Why is an IP address required?

 The primary goal of the Internet is to provide an abstract view of the complexities

involved in it. Internet must appear as single network of computers. At the same time
network administrators or users must be free to choose hardware or various
internetworking technologies like Ethernet, Token ring etc. Different networking
technologies have different physical addressing mechanisms. Therefore, identifying a
computer on Internet is a challenge. To have uniform addressing for computers over
the Internet, IP software defines an IP address which is a logical address. Now, when
a computer wants to communicate to another computer on the Internet, it can use
logical address and is not bothered with the physical address of the destination and
hence the format and size of data packed