public static long toNumericIpAddress(final String address) throws UnknownHostException {
        final byte[] addressBytes = ipAddressFromString(address).getAddress();
        long value = 0;
        for (byte b : addressBytes) {
            value = (value << 8) | (b & 0xFF);
        }
        return value;
    }
Converts a string-based IPv4 address to its numeric representation
@param address An IPv4 address, such as `192.168.1.0`
@return A numeric representation of the IP address
stroom-util/src/main/java/stroom/util/net/IpAddressUtil.java