[ppml] IP Address Management Tools

[Michael.Dillon at radianz.com]

A few weeks ago, John Lewis said:

>It doesn't help that there seems to be no suitable tool for tracking IP 
>utilization to the degree that ARIN applications require...at least none 
>that I've seen, and I've installed and tested several of the free 
>ones...and never got anywhere trying to get info or a test drive out of a 

>commercial one.  This means for the average ISP, ARIN application time is 

>also IP utilization audit time.  Not a fun time for whoever does it.

>If someone were to develop an affordable (to the average small ISP) tool 
>for IP allocation tracking, and applying for more space was reduced to 
>filling out a few text fields on the ARIN application and including a 
>report from your allocation tracking system, I think there'd be alot less 

>complaining about the 3-month's supply policy by ISPs when they get to 
>their 3rd allocation and finally get slapped down by the 3-month policy.

I suggest that ARIN should provide such a tool in furtherance of its 
purposes such as numbers 4, 5 and 8. You can read the full text of those 
numbered purposes at this URL: 
http://www.arin.net/library/corp_docs/amend_june_19_1997.pdf

I would like to see a discussion of this on the agenda at the next members 
meeting.

I envisage this tool as something which uses a proper hierarchical data 
model for IP addresse, not a relational data model, and which uses an 
appropriate programming language which could be incorporated into 
commercial software packages or adopted by enterprise IT departments. That 
probably means a Java framework combined with Python for scripting glue. 
http://www.jython.org

Some things which are definitely not appropriate are MySQL and PERL. There 
are already several hack jobs that people have thrown together using PERL 
and MySQL but they don't do the job well enough, would never be adopted by 
enterprise IT departments or commercial network management packages. In 
addition, MySQL is a RELATIONAL database but IP address ranges are 
hierarchical in nature and are better suited to an object-oriented or a 
hierarchical database model. The intention is not to do another hack job 
but to provide a reference implementation that other people will adopt and 
integrate into their larger systems.

-------------------------------------------------------
Michael Dillon
Capacity Planning, Prescot St., London, UK
Mobile: +44 7900 823 672    Internet: michael.dillon at radianz.com
Phone: +44 20 7650 9493    Fax: +44 20 7650 9030