BT Diamond IP, a BT unit that already provides IP network software and appliance products, has now added a managed IP address management service to its offerings.
The new IP address management (IPAM) service enables enterprises, in particular, to hand off the increasingly complex management of IP addresses to industry experts, said Tim Rooney, director of product management for BT Diamond IP.
�We are the only IPAM-centric company to do this,� Rooney said. �We can offer a full suite of IPAM, either based on software and appliance products, or the managed service. There are other companies that offer managed services, but we are offering the services and products to give customers the maximum number of choices and flexibility in deciding what is better.�
As more devices become IP-enabled and more services, such as VoIP, require IP address assignment, many enterprises find their homegrown solutions, such as management by spreadsheet, can’t keep up, Rooney said. Using the BT Diamond IP service, an enterprise logs on through a portal or sends an email request to do something like add a printer or a VoIP user, and BT Diamond IP assigns the appropriate location and subnet and configures the proper server, Rooney said.
�There is no upfront capital � they just pay a monthly subscription fee � and they don’t need the resources they would need to update a spreadsheet,� Rooney said. In many cases, companies are using different subnets for different applications, such as one for data, one for voice and one for wireless, he said.
�There are more technical details � voice needs different addresses than data, for instance � and we can help them define or trigger how this is set up,� Rooney said.
�Some customers have independent address bases for voice versus data, and that adds a new dimension. With wireless, some devices have unique additional parameters that must be set up.�
BT offers a range of service options, from its basic Sapphire Infrastructure Management option — which includes proactive monitoring, troubleshooting, network configuration and patch management for one fee — up to a fully managed service that provides all IPAM management functions, including moving or changing subnets, IP addresses, pools, resource records and more.
