BT Diamond IP's IPControl is an IP Address Management (IPAM) platform offered in both software and appliance-based flavors. The platform is used to manage a network's IPv4 or IPv6 address space, providing inventory, configuration, and capacity management capabilities for the vendor's own DNS / DHCP appliances and/or 3rd party (ISC and Microsoft) DHCP and DNS servers.

The IPControl software-based product provides a central management GUI (the "IPControl Executive") and interface agents for the management of IPControl appliances (more below) and/or ISC and Microsoft DNS and DHCP servers. The vendor bills the product as providing full lifecycle management capabilities for IP address spaces on the network, including key features for address planning, DHCP / DNS server configuration, and address management functions:

- For address planning, key features include support for IPv4 and IPv6 networks with any CIDR size or prefix; automated address allocations or manual overrides; and address utilization/trending and forecasting reports

- For DHCP / DNS server configuration, key features include support for server templates, DHCP failover, DNS Views, TSIGs, MAC address processing, dynamic DNS, logging, and address match lists; as well as a DNS configuration verification tool

- For Address Management, key features include support for container structures based on topology, geography, or user-defined hierarchies; support for user-defined thresholds/alerts regarding potential address depletions; support for policies that delegate administrator access to functions, geographies, domains, subnets and blocks; and audit reporting.

The IPControl platform is also available from the vendor in an appliance form-factor. Known as the IPControl Sapphire appliances, the devices include built-in DNS/DHCP services (the x series appliances), or built-in IPControl software (the EX series). x series appliances provide the actual DNS / DHCP services to local or remote networks, while the EX series provide the centralized control and management point for the remote x series appliances (as well as ISC/MS DNS and DHCP servers). Additionally, the EX appliances facilitate patch management and deployment features for the distributed appliances; patch upgrades can be applied to the remote DNS / DHCP services as well as the appliance O/S and kernel. x series appliances are managed via IPControl; thus they require either an EX appliance or the IPControl stand alone software as described above.

Each of the Sapphire appliances can be deployed in 1U or 2U formats (the vendor states that the 2U appliances offer "data center-quality performance, redundancy, and management" while the 1U appliances are targeted to remote office deployments) and is based on a hardened Linux O/S.

Features in the upcoming new release of IPControl include:

- Layer 2 switch discovery; enabling the linking of layer 3 IP addresses to layer 2 addresses and switch ports

- Automated and manual IP address and subnet reclaim capabilities

- Support for automated IPv6 management including ip6.arpa domain creation, AAAA/PTR resource record automation, and support for best-fit, sparse or random block allocations

The new release of IPControl is expected to be generally available on April 30, 2007. x series base pricing starts at $5,495.

Contact BT Diamond IP for further information.