We hear the ever present story of Shadow IT, but what is even more challenging for many sysadmin teams and network teams is what I call Shadow IP. It's the independent tracking (or failure to track) IP and network information for your environment.
There are many tools that have different levels of storing, displaying, tracking, and even actively managing IP addressing for networks. With the freshly minted SolarWinds IPAM beta, there are some slick features coming down the pipe. The real question though, is what are you using today, if anything?
I've used everything from Excel documents, custom designed web apps, and I've dabbled a bit with the Microsoft IPAM tools in 2012 but so far I've had the best adoption by my team (network and IT ops) with the SolarWinds IPAM.
I'd love to hear about your stories, good and bad on IP address management. Looking to hear about anything regarding:
- Tracking IP usage
- Documenting subnets and descriptive info
- Active management
- How do you do IPAM today?
- What's missing from your IPAM solution?
- What are any barriers to adopting a full IPAM product
Looking to see if I can improve my processes. Happy to share any learnings along the way too as I dive into more options and features of any tools that may be appropriate.
Any thoughts and help appreciated!