“The real question is not ‘if’ organizations should integrate IPv6, but ‘how’ it can best be planned, implemented and managed — we developed Proteus IPAM version 3.5 to provide a ‘path of least resistance’ to IPv6 by simplifying, expediting and eliminating the integration and management tasks that every IT department dreads.”
—Luc Roy, VP of Product Management & MarketingWith IPv4 addresses almost fully depleted, BlueCat Networks’ IPAM technology offers a complete end-to-end IPv6 planning, implementation and management tool for all organizations

BlueCat Networks, the IPAM Intelligence™ company, today launches Proteus IPAM v3.5, the most complete end-to-end IP Address Management (IPAM) solution for both IPv4 and IPv6 networks. Proteus IPAM v3.5 consolidates management of the entire IPv4 and IPv6 infrastructure on a single, intuitive, business-oriented user interface to make it easier than ever before for organizations to plan for, implement and manage IPv6 networks. BlueCat Networks’ industry-leading Proteus IPAM v3.5 IPAM platform includes IPv6 modeling, IPv6 discovery and reconciliation, complete ‘dual stack’ IPv4/IPv6 management, data transformation and other operational efficiency and management features to significantly simplify IPv6 integration.

Proteus IPAM v3.5’s IPv6 modeling enhancements provide organizations with increased flexibility when creating blocks (which could be a specific science faculty within a university’s entire campus network). As Proteus IPAM v3.5 can now adapt to an existing network infrastructure, it makes it easy for administrators to map out the blocks that are required in a format that already exists. This greatly simplifies IPv6 planning and eliminates potential planning errors.

IPv6 implementation is complicated by the fact that multiple addresses will be required per interface. As the seed router does not have an IPv6 router to discover the IPv6 network, organizations will have to manually track multiple IP addresses on both the existing IPv4 system and new IPv6 system. This is an extremely time-consuming and labor-intensive task. Proteus IPAM v3.5’s IP discovery and reconciliation tools provide an accurate, real-time picture of both the IPv6 and IPv4 network on a single, central user interface—making it simple for administrators to dynamically track when devices are added or removed from the network and fully integrate all IP address information.

Further adding to the complexity of implementing IPv6 are ‘dual stack’ networks, where both IPv4 and IPv6 will be running simultaneously with devices requiring an address for both IP versions. With dual stack networks becoming a necessity for IPv6 deployments, Proteus IPAM v3.5 provides complete parallel management of both IPv6 and IPv4 networks by enabling simultaneous management of dual stack devices which support both IPv4 and IPv6—including mapping IPv4 devices to their IPv6 address(es) and vice versa, DNS, DHCP and other key information within an organization’s entire IP space.

Proteus™ from BlueCat Networks is the industry’s most complete IP Address Management (IPAM) platform. Purpose-built for scalability and high-availability, Proteus provides sophisticated utilities to rapidly design, deploy, configure and maintain distributed IP addresses. Proteus consolidates management of the entire IP infrastructure, while managing Adonis and Windows® DNS and DHCP servers from a centralized management tool.

Proteus IPAM v3.5’s Proteus Blueprint, a data transformation tool, also simplifies implementation by making it simple for administrators to import data from different systems, including spreadsheets and popular DNS and DHCP servers, and then manipulate the existing IPv4 and IPv6 data—customizing blocks, eliminating bad data, etc.—before the data is imported to Proteus. Then, once all the data is cleaned up, Proteus IPAM v3.5’s Migration capability makes it easy for administrators to port the cleaned-up data from existing IPv6 blocks, networks and addresses straight to Proteus.

Once a block is created, Proteus IPAM v3.5 also makes it simple for administrators to auto-create networks within a block (for example, a specific network for laboratories within the science faculty). This granularity makes it easy for administrators to manage the block as a whole, and also makes it easy to redesign blocks if necessary.

Lastly, and most importantly, as IPv6’s 128-bit hexadecimal addresses are much longer and more complex than IPv4 addresses (2001:fecd:ba23:cd1f:dcb1:1010:9234:4088 as opposed to 192.121.10.1), they are virtually impossible to track and manage with traditional spreadsheets. Add to this the fact that IPv6 networks and notation are unfamiliar to most administrators, and it is clear that the possibility of assignment errors and management headaches is greatly increased during adoption. Proteus IPAM v3.5 simplifies the management of IPv6 on a daily basis by minimizing the amount of data entry required and by simplifying the creation of IP blocks and networks. In addition to this, Proteus provides complete IPv6 DNS management, allowing users to more easily manage their DNS space, including support for DDNS and DNSSEC.

“IPv6 is inevitable,” said Luc Roy, VP of Product Management and Marketing, BlueCat Networks. “Available IPv4 addresses from the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) will be exhausted by summer 2011, and as the number of IPv6-only clients grows and many new Internet-facing services begin to only support IPv6, deploying IPv6 will mean the difference between being seen or being absent on the Internet,” Roy continued. “So, the real question is not ‘if’ organizations should integrate IPv6, but ‘how’ it can best be planned, implemented and managed—we developed Proteus IPAM version 3.5 to provide a ‘path of least resistance’ to IPv6 by simplifying, expediting and eliminating the integration and management tasks that every IT department dreads.”

BlueCat Networks’ IP Address Management (IPAM) solution simplifies network management by making it easy for administrators to fully integrate IP inventory tracking and allocation, along with DNS and DHCP management. Administrators can design networks with a simple conceptual view, then deploy and manage them across the organization. When managing DNS and DHCP, BlueCat Networks’ IPAM solution becomes “mission control,” offering full command and customization of configurations from a central, secure Web-based interface to make it simple to eliminate all IPAM problems by centrally managing and auditing IPv4, IPv6, DNS and DNSSEC networks. For a free trial of BlueCat Networks’ VMware Ready™ Proteus IPAM solution and Adonis DNS/DHCP solution, please visit http://www.bluecatnetworks.com/free-trial.