Take Control
Accurate recording of IP address allocation on your network helps prevent outages and improve efficiency. Find out how Infoblox can solve your IP pain points.
Many client systems now have embedded firewalls that will block pings by default, and even if an address is available, who’s to say that the person who usually uses that address isn’t simply away from the office, or that the printer using that address is currently switched off.
Proper IP address planning also helps with the efficient allocation of subnets. The best way to allocate subnets is by creating blocks of addresses allocated for specific purposes, and then allocate the subnets out of these blocks. If you simply allocate subnets sequentially you will end up with a complex illogical IP plan, with no route summarisation techniques available, a fragmented address space and the inability to expand existing subnets to cope with more devices.
Many enterprise networks are still managing their IP address space manually via spreadsheets (approximately 75%), via homegrown applications or a combination of the two.
Gartner 2012 DDI Marketscope.
Traditionally people have used spreadsheets to keep track of their subnets and devices, but these often become unwieldy and difficult to maintain. As the complexity of the network increases, so do the spreadsheets, with multiple pages/tabs and differing formats to cope with different requirements. Also if multiple people are accessing centrally stored spreadsheets, the temptation to make local copies when you only gain “read-only” access to a network copy is intense; when this happens you have lost control.
Some organisations use a custom home grown solution or Access database instead of spreadsheets, but time and again we have seen organisations hampered by such solutions because the original developer has left and no-one knows how to update the solution to cope with new requirements.
Because of these issues, it makes sense to deploy a commercial solution. The advantages are numerous but a small number of the more important ones include:
- Integrated DNS/DHCP management
- Full audit trail
- Delegated user rights
- Comprehensive reporting
Next Steps
Getting started with IP Address Management is simple. No matter what stage in the process you are at, Calleva Networks can enable you with the resources you need to help Evaluate, Design and Deploy your Core Services infrastructure.
Evaluate: Take our product portfolio for a test drive.
Design: We will create a design overview so you can assess the deployment choices.
