What is involved in IP address management? In simple terms, this involves the maintenance of all the network information with regard to network IP addresses. A network administrator will need to do this in order to find out the amount of free address space he has, what subnets are in use, how large the subnets are, where they are located and who is using them. While network management has remained virtually unchanged since the early beginnings of the TCP/ IP protocol, the scope and sophistication of the tools in network management have completely changed. What are some of the tools used in network management?
One of these is the DNS. Domain Name System defines the name space of hierarchical domains by breaking domains into zones and centralized lines for administrative purposes. In short, DNS is a distributed database that has locally maintained network info that is also available globally. Programs called name servers are used to implement DNS by contacting other name servers and storing the collected information organized into zones. For the quickly growing internet, DNS removed bottlenecks in networks but at the same time created zone database file complexity, decentralized information and lacked the ability to easily store additional host information.
Commercial IP address management software became available in the mid 1990s and offered such features as centralized management, a graphical user interface, consistency, dynamic DNS and was both extensible and customizable. It also allowed the reporting of network information and activities. Tools like Plesk and IP Address Manager (IPAM) help network engineers not only manage networks, but also locate and resolve IP network problems. Some of features of these 4th generation tools include periodic checking and scanning of IP addresses to determine what IP addresses are available, scanning of the Active Directory, hierarchical representation of the network in a graphical user interface, end-to-end IP details like the Port Numbers, contact details and history of IP allocations. Alerts can also be configured where emails can be sent when an IP becomes available or used.
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