What is the primary benefit of using NAT in networking?

The primary benefit of using Network Address Translation (NAT) is to conserve public IP addresses. NAT allows multiple devices on a local network to share a single public IP address when accessing the internet. This capability is especially important given the limited availability of IPv4 addresses. By using NAT, organizations can maintain a larger number of devices within their internal network using private IP addresses without requiring a unique public IP for each device. This not only helps in efficient use of the available public IP address space, but also adds a layer of security by masking internal IP addresses from external networks. In addition, NAT can enable easier network scalability, as new devices can be added without needing more public IP addresses.