IPAM

The term "DDI" is redundant and superfluous. But it's proven an effective distraction to the market from the true IPAM capabilities, or lack thereof, of certain vendors. You see, IP address management, IPAM, comprises the practice of managing IP address space, from which DNS and DHCP configurations can be derived and deployed. The term "IPAM," initially coined in the 1990's, incorporates IP address management, which itself includes DNS and DHCP configuration. Why would an IP engineer define an address pool on a DHCP server in a vacuum, independently of the IP address plan? An address pool corresponds to one or more IP addresses on a provisioned subnet which rolls up to an IP address block managed by the IP network manager. Likewise, a device's DNS resource records, especially those referring to a device's IP address(es), namely A, AAAA and PTR, relate to an IP address on a similarly provisioned subnet. The inter-relationships and dependencies amo...

I haven't posted in a while as I've been spending my spare time tweaking my new website ! I needed to track the various configuration parameter settings for DHCP and BIND for my own reference - so why not share it!? The site details configurations for these market-leading reference implementations and I plan to keep it as up-to-date as practical. I've also packaged up these configuration details along with those for Microsoft DHCP and DNS in an "IPAM Configuration Reference Guide", downloadable in pdf or zip format - to download the document, simply register as part of the IPAM community! The site also links to key resources for further information on IP addressing, DHCP and DNS including DNSSEC including relevant RFCs. The goal is to be technology focused and not so much sales focused - we get enough of that with vendor sites and even affinity sites like LinkedIn! IPAM technologies continue to evolve and new resources come and go, so it's somewhat of a wo...