How to store and search for an IP Address

Question

I have the 4 sources of IP addresses , I want to store them in SQL Server and allow the ranges, that can be categorised by the originating country code, to be maked in an E

Answer 1

Assuming your IP Addresses are IPV4, you could just store them in an integer field. Create 2 fields, one for the lower bound for the range, and another for the upper bound. Then make sure these to fields are indexed. When searching for values, just search where the value is greater than or equal to the lower bound, and less than or equal to the upper bound. I would experiment with something simple like this before trying to program something more complicated yourself, which doesn't actually give noticeably quicker results.