Questions about IP Address Management

As IT vendors continue to provide more services and ensure the availability and security of network resources, IP address management gradually begins to reach the front-end of network infrastructure devices.

IP address management is a work of maintaining and updating all IP address information databases within the network at any time. Traditionally, it includes detailed directories created manually and workbooks similar to Excel, when new devices are added to the network, these directories and tables are updated. According to the Forrester Research Institute, 25% of the companies surveyed are switching from this traditional manual method to internal development applications, 20% use third-party tools to simplify IP address management.

Why IP addresses are important

IP address management has begun to take a more important place in the necessary IT work list. In the process of moving from behind the scenes to the beginning, there are several main factors that play a role:

Centralized data centers allow more and more internal network applications to be provided over the Internet. This encourages IT vendors to make efforts to better manage IP addresses.

VoIP converts a phone number into an IP device, potentially doubling the number of IP addresses.

The focus of Network Security began to shift from unknown devices to network access and potential virus infections, which also forced companies to better manage network access.

IT provides end users with QoS and application requirements, prompting IT managers to pay more attention to IP addresses.

Some large enterprises have many completely different networks, subnets, and small Server clusters, and their management is also unorganized. Many people now choose to centrally manage these network devices in the data center, which turns a large network into a rather complex map.

IP management functions

In this context, a group of vendors, including Cisco, INS, Lucent, Nortel, and ApplianSys, have released management tools on the market, helps network administrators maintain the IP address directories of networks, subnets, virtual LANs, and other network devices. These tools use software installed on servers or bundled in applications and are designed to maintain a network address directory that can be updated in a timely manner. Some network management products are actually a database and must be manually updated by network engineers. Some products claim to be able to dynamically discover new devices and collect IP address information from these devices, make sure that the address information is not reused.

Thomas Mendel, chief analyst at Forrester, believes that the development and application of IP address management programs and tools have taken a lot of time. As the number of IP addresses increases, IT managers must continue to provide such services, there will be major breakthroughs in this field in the next two years.

IP address viewed by number

An IP address consists of a network identification code and a device identification code. Therefore, a complete IP address requires a unique network and host code. This is like sending an email at the post office. First, check the zip code and then the local address. When a data packet is sent to the target address in the network, a decision is made based on the total route information, and then sent to the local router. IP address management can significantly reduce the management time and troubleshooting time because it can quickly discover faults and immediately learn where to query them.

However, IP address management cannot only trace numbers. It also includes matching numbers and uses these numbers through DNS (Domain Name Server) and DHCP (Dynamic Host Configured Protocol, dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) is passed to the user. DNS is like a telephone number book that matches numbers with names. For example, a DNS server will arrange the name of the target server and match the Digital IP address with the name. The DHCP server can be used to automatically allocate TCP/IP settings to customers. The IP address comes from the database defined in the DHCP server. The server authorizes the IP address within a specific period of time, which is called the lease period.

According to the recent statistics by INS on 190 IT experts, the complexity of IP networks is also increasing as the demand for IP addresses increases. The survey shows that managing thousands of IP addresses not only brings exponential challenges to network managers, but also creates obstacles to the overhead and complexity of launching products to the market for more than 40% of IT vendors under investigation.

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Will McGregor's daily job is dealing with numbers, but he is not a financial engineer. As a member of the London Reuters LAN network and security group, the numbers he needs to handle are IP addresses that represent more than 10 thousand servers and network devices. If these numbers are faulty, the IP service or application required by the media giant cannot be obtained normally. Any IP address conflict will eventually lead to IP service interruption, which is a complete disaster. So for them, IP address management is absolutely critical and increasingly complicated.

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