BlueCat Networks Affirms AOTMP Research Findings: Demand For 3rd Generation IP Address Management (IPAM) Solutions At All Time High, And Climbing

Published 16th July 2008

Enterprises are consuming IP address at alarming rate and lack automation tools to gain visibility, control and predictability: Proteus resolves issues with IPAM...

BlueCat Networks, the IPAM Intelligence Company™, today affirms the findings and data points in the Association of Telecom Management Professional’s (AOTMP) latest industry research entitled, “Network Performance Management Report: The Network is Not Down.” This report highlights factors fuelling demand for a new, intelligent approach to IP Address Management (IPAM) and the deficiencies in the manual management techniques commonly used today.

The report uncovers several trends that highlight the need to improve the systems that enterprises use for IPAM including:

 73% of enterprise expect their broadband needs to grow
 61% of enterprises list their top challenges as a lack of automation and inaccurate inventory in the management of IP addresses, hardware, applications and network services
 58% of enterprises possess an insufficient expertise in performance management, optimization, and acceleration

“The findings confirm what we have been advocating for some time and what we have been witnessing in our customer base,” said Michael Hyatt, CEO of BlueCat Networks. “Most network managers rightly believe that the uptime of their network is critical to their business,” Hyatt continued. “After all, if devices cannot obtain a valid IP address and if networks are not readily accessible, then businesses can concretely associate these two critical factors not only with poor network performance and productivity, but also, more significantly, with a negative impact on profitability and customer relationships.”

The report includes a case study that illustrates how VoIP fuels demand for IPAM. The case study outlines how IPAM enabled an organization to simplify the deployment of its new VoIP system by streamlining the administration, distribution, and reporting of its IP addresses for its new phone system, computers, and numerous wireless devices on the network.

“Managing IP addresses is only going to get more complex as more devices are added to the network,” stated Joe Basili, vice president of research for AOTMP. “Furthermore, managers of today’s dynamic enterprise network environments face a number of challenges including a lack of automation with spreadsheet tracking for IP addresses, usage, and auditing of IP address inventories,” Basili continued. “Intelligent IPAM solutions embody these features and functions as well as offering other services like database backup and restoration, clustering with data replication and automatic failover, data checking, system monitoring, auditing and reporting to ensure high availability and continuity of network services.”

BlueCat’s worldwide award winning product, Proteus, is driving the acceptance of IPAM by lowering the Total Cost of Ownership and enhancing the end-user experience. The demand for a sophisticated IPAM brings new management requirements, which BlueCat’s Proteus IPAM platform delivers. These include:

 Workflow management
 Granular policy administration
 Automatic IP discovery, reconciliation and reclamation
 Monitoring of remote appliances
 Restoration of any deleted data pertaining to domains, networks or IP addresses
 Quick navigation functionality to view entire networks
 Network event notification
 Enforcement of corporate naming policies
 Accurate modeling of network domains for the purpose of anticipating requirements for IP addresses

The report concludes by recommending that action be taken to evaluate the merits of technology like IPAM, WAN emulation/optimization, network monitoring, VoIP management, and security solutions. Readers can download the complete unabridged report at http://www.aotmp.com/research/REP0708BC.aspx.

BlueCat Networks offers a true enterprise-class IPAM platform in the form of proven, secure, reliable and scalable network appliances. Proteus gives administrators a solution that integrates IP inventory tracking and allocation, along with DNS and DHCP management. Administrators can design networks with a simple conceptual view, then deploy and manage them across the organization. When managing DNS and DHCP, Proteus becomes “mission control”, offering full command, control and customization of configurations from a centralized and secure Web-based interface.