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A supernet is created by combining several Internet Protocol (IP) networks or subnets into one network with a single classless interdomain routing (CIDR) prefix. The new combined network has the same routing prefix as the collection of the prefixes of the subnets. The procedure used to create a supernet is commonly called supernetting, route aggregation or route summarization.
Techopedia Explains Supernet
Supernetting simplifies network routing decisions and saves storage space on route tables. While supernetting, data bits are borrowed from the network ID and allocated to the host ID. A larger and more complicated network can block other routers from making topological changes, so a supernet improves convergence speed and enables a better and more stable environment.
Network identifiers used in the supernet can have any length. This permits the organizations to customize network size based on their requirements. For instance, two blocks of class C can be supernetted for a total of approximately 500 addresses. The route aggregation feature of supernetting can be used to group routing information for multiple networks or hosts into one “summarized” route.
The supernet concept includes some drawbacks, the most notable of which is the complexity of CIDR compared to a classful addressing system and the need for new routing protocols that support the CIDR. The ability to customize the network identifier length also makes it harder for the system administrators to differentiate between a host identifier and a network identifier. In order to solve this issue, a new form of IP address writing called slash, or CIDR, notation was developed.
