subject: The Future of Network Address Management – Dynamic Scanning [print this page] The Future of Network Address Management Dynamic Scanning
You may hate it, but you have no choice but to manage it. IP addressing can be a complex animal, yet you can rest easy if you know what you're doing. After reading this article, hopefully you'll have a bit more direction in what you should be doing to take hold of IP address management for your network by migrating it from a static solution to something dynamic.
In the past, most networking personnel used a home-grown solution to keep track of IP addresses on their system. While this was usually done because it was the best solution at the time it was implemented, there are tools available now that can make handling the changes to your network much easier. Whether you were using spreadsheets or some piece of software developed in-house ten years ago, your best bet these days is to get something more comprehensive from experts who have spent a lot of time perfecting the best way to manage network addressing.
What these experts have discovered is that instead of putting in the grunt work associated with tracking every little addressing change on a network, it is better to track this information dynamically. By consistently scanning the network for addressing changes, software can now do the work for you with a little bit of your input on how to organize your addresses. By using a solution like this you are able to scale your network without time wasting busy work that often leaves the details overlook or even worse, mistakes in your record-keeping.
How does this work? A software agent can go out and scan DHCP servers for IP address changes. You can specify the amount of time in between lapses for say, weekdays when you know that changes are going to be made or even weekends and holidays when any changes that may occur during that time would probably be a little fishy.
You can even set up user-level accesses so certain members of your team have authorization to make changes in the addressing scheme. Plus, if one of your network engineers makes a mistake, you'll easily be able to go back and find out what when wrong so that future incidents can be minimized.
Often times we go through network changes leaving unused addresses left behind. With a dynamic addressing tool, this is no longer a problem. Since the network is being scanned at a periodic rate, unused addresses can be identified and repurposed. For those who have an eye for detail and order, making sure that your subnets are addressed correctly is probably a priority a key benefit when you know IP addresses are not being used.
So let's break this down. If you're currently using a spreadsheet, home grown database or other program to track IP addresses in a static way, you really need to consider making a shift to something that is more cost effective. Centralize everything in a convenient web based platform, and watch how easy and effective you can be at managing your network's complicated addressing.
