How to relieve the stress of managing IP addresses in VMware environments

Are IP requests for virtual machines overwhelming your current IP address management practices?  You are not alone. In a June 2016 survey of IP Address Manager customers[1], 46% of respondents stated that virtual machines were creating challenges for managing IP addresses for their company.

Independent author Brien Posey explores this topic in the whitepaper “Overcoming IP Address Management Challenges in VMware Environments.” A challenge with virtual environments is that their dynamic nature can quickly lead to depleted address pools if IP addresses are not quickly de-provisioned. Utilizing DHCP services is a less than ideal solution, as IPs can be tied up by lease expiration dates. Using manual processes for provisioning IP addresses is another option, but this can be slow, error-prone, and limit the dynamic scaling of virtual environments. DNS records obviously must also be updated in tandem.

A solution to overcoming these IP address management challenges is fully automating the process of provisioning IP addresses and updating DNS records. VMware developed vRealize Automation (vRA) to automate tasks in virtual environments. However, as Brien discusses, vRA was not designed to be a comprehensive IP address management solution, thus the need for third-party solutions to fill this gap. SolarWinds IP Address Manager (IPAM) helps overcome this limitation by providing a plug-in for VMware vRealize Orchestrator (vRO). The plug-in provides actions and workflows critical for managing IP addresses and DNS records. These actions and workflows integrate with vRA and enable the creation of blueprints to automate the provisioning and de-provisioning of VMs.

To learn more about this topic, please read Brien Posey’s whitepaper, and attend the live webcast coming up February 21, where our very own IPAM Product Manager Connie Dowdle will take you through a demonstration of the plug-in and the latest and greatest that SolarWinds IPAM 4.6 has to offer.

IP Address Manager customer survey, June 2016, survey result