BlueCat Address Manager: IP Reconciliation Reports and Freeing IP Address Space

Preface

Eligibility & Order Procedures

Available To:    LSU Technology Support Professionals (TSPs)  ONLY
Request Service:    Submit a Ticket to request IP Reconciliation Reports from the BlueCat Address Manager. Please include the building(s) and subnet(s) that should be included in the report and assign the ticket to NASA.
Delivery Timeline:    IP Reconciliation Report requests will be fulfilled within 3 business days

IP Reconciliation

  IP address discovery and reconciliation discovers IPv4 and IPv6 addresses on your network and returns their host information to the BlueCat Address Manager (BAM). After discovering the addresses on your network, you can manually add them to your Address Manager configuration. For addresses that are marked as reclaimable by the IP reconciliation report you may delete the addresses to free up space in the desired subnet.

  BAM uses SNMP interrogation against one or more routers, and Layer 2/3 switches to discover the IP address, hardware address, and DNS host name for hosts on your subnet(s).

  BAM records the results of the IP reconciliation, and the information can be presented in a report attached to a ticket. 

  Types of IP Addresses Identified in the report:

• Reclaimable IP Address — an IP address that exists in BAM, but not on the physical network. This may represent a device that was turned off at the time of the discovery, or the address may no longer exist on the network.
• Unknown IP Address — an IP address that exists on the physical network, but not in BAM. This likely represents an address that has been added to the network since the last discovery.
• Mismatched IP Address — an IP address that exists in both BAM and on the network, but where the MAC address, DNS host name information, VLAN information or connected switch port does not match.

  When cleaning up subnets that are shared with other departments on campus you should notify the other associated departments before just deleting addresses marked as reclaimable. If you can identify that the reclaimable address was for your department's device that is no longer on the network, please feel free to delete the IP address in BAM.

  Please remember that you do not have to delete or clean up space in the dynamic DHCP range(s) in your subnet(s). The DHCP server and BAM automatically manage those IP spaces. If you are running out of manually assignable IP addresses (for Reserved DHCP assignments) in your subnet and have enough free space in your DHCP range, you may contact the ITS Network Operations Center (NOC) to request that the DHCP range be shrunk and the manually assignable space be grown.

Subnet Redesign Request

  After receiving the reconciliation report and cleaning up your subnet space, you may contact the ITS Network Operation Center (NOC) to request a redesign of your subnet if the following conditions are all met:

1. You have received a reconciliation report of your subnet
2. You have cleaned out all reclaimable space in your subnet
3. The subnet is still 90% or greater utilized (including the DHCP Range).