In the spirit of getting folks more excited about the next version of NPM
(10.2), which is currently in Beta, I wanted to do another blog post on one of
the new features coming. We have invited folks in a couple previous posts (you
can sign up here), along with highlighting some other features here and here.
Over the past several months there has been tons of press over the exhaustion
of IPv4 addresses and the need to move to IPv6 as soon as possible. With this,
there is plenty of debate out there as to how much truth there is in terms of
the severity of this problem and I am sure we all have our respective opinions,
but at some point in the future IPv6 will find its way into most networks out
there. Where we see heavy adoption and usage today of IPv6 are with Service
Providers, Federal Governments and in the Asia Pacific region of the world.
With this in mind, we have been working across our different products to ensure
they are ready for when folks move to IPv6. Today, SolarWinds NCM, IPAM and
Engineers Toolset have some level of support for IPv6 and now we are adding
SolarWinds NPM to this list of products.
Just as you manage IPv4 devices today, you will be able to do the same for
IPv6 devices. Whether you are running them in a dual stack setup (which is the
most common we hear about), or pure IPv6 mode; NPM will be able to handle it.
- Within NPM you will be able to add IPv6 devices manually or using the bulk
upload feature within Network Sonar. - Once managed in NPM, it will be presented like any other node in Orion. As
illustrated in the first couple screenshots below, you can group by IP Version
now to distinguish v4 vs. v6 devices.
- As highlighted in this next screenshot, you as the user should see no
different experience from a data collection or user flow standpoint. Only
noticeable differences are in the method we communicate to the devices.
- This will be exposed in reporting, searching, Syslog, SNMP Traps and other
native features existing in NPM today. You can reference the third screenshot
as an example of search with IPv6.
Let us know what you think. Are you moving to IPv6 yet? When do you plan to
start the transition?
