The world today is more dependent on IP than it has ever been in the past. While the growth of the Internet has been quite fast in the recent years, the advent of various devices accessing the internet has increased the demand for IP addresses at an unprecedented scale. Internet of Things (IoT) is the future and there is no way past that. With the growing number of devices interacting with the web there is already a shortage of IP addresses and IPv4 addresses have been exhausted. It is time to make way for the IPv6 addressing system. However, before moving on to the next level, business organizations have a different issue to take into consideration – the management of the IP addresses in the system. Thus, IP address management software (IPAM software) is the need of the hour.
IPAM is necessary for organizations having multiple devices accessing the network. With large number of devices there is the need of a large segment of IPs. Unless you have a proper IP address management strategy in place it is going to get chaotic in the long run as you start facing issues with conflicting IPs. Organizations that have their own server and network also face the risk of external attack which can only be checked through secured IP address management. The year 2017 opens up new opportunities and frontiers as well as make it even more important to take security and related issues seriously. if you are yet to invest in an IP address management software, here are a few compelling reasons why you should.
1. Security: Security is a major concern for any business organization. IPAM software manages all the IP addresses in use within a network using both DNS and DHCP. If there is any change in either of the two the software is able to monitor it and make the necessary changes. It also helps in keeping a track of all the IP addresses in use and the systems what are assigned the IP addresses along with the activity happening in respect to each of the IP addresses. Thus, any security breach and rogue IP is identified at source and can be countered.
2. Network Health Monitoring: Network health monitoring and maintenance is an important activity performed by IPAM system. When you are dealing with a large network such as that of an enterprise IP address conflict can result in complete chaos. It is virtually impossible to manually keep track of all the IPs assigned to all the systems interacting with the network. IPs can be reserved, static or dynamic or might follow any other protocol as stated. Besides these, the IPAM also keep track of the MAC addresses, hostname, DHCP lease data, and much more. This in turn helps in keeping the network running at optimum scale.
3. Compliance: There might be certain protocols a network needs to comply with. IPAM helps with such compliances. Detailed collection of data helps in maintaining a network that is in compliant with all security protocols as well, effectively making the network highly secured.
