BlueCat Networks Enhances IPAM Intelligence™ Solution to Provide Significant Cost Savings
Automating IP Network Administration Enables Managers to Maximize Resource Efficiency
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BlueCat Networks, the IPAM Intelligence Company™, today announces that enhancements to its Proteus IPAM (IP Address Management) solution will ensure that any organization can significantly increase ROI by drastically reducing the fast-escalating costs associated with IP network administration. Proteus’ new workflow functionality makes it simpler than ever before for administrators to automate cumbersome IP network management tasks and delegate time-consuming responsibilities to sub administrators.
Proteus makes it easy for administrators to delegate network configuration changes to sub administrators and then centrally approve all work before any network changes affect the system. This centralized approval mechanism safeguards the system against configuration errors making it simple for administrators to “delegate with confidence.” As a result, senior administrators can now delegate tasks to ensure IT network productivity is always maximized.
By facilitating delegation to any type of DNS, DHCP or IP address object through workflow, BlueCat’s Proteus sets a benchmark for 3rd generation IPAM in terms of network administration workflow efficiencies, cost savings and resource utilization.
With IP networks becoming increasingly complex, the use of spreadsheets to manage IT addresses is no longer feasible. With VoIP, virtualization, wireless devices, and countless other devices / applications demanding exponentially more IP addresses from the network, the workload of central administrators and sub administrators has become overwhelming. To directly address these issues, BlueCat Networks developed innovative IPAM management functionality that greatly simplifies IT network administration to ensure that:
* Power users focus on building and configuring networks
* Help desk staff and junior administrators focus on adding DNS records to the external name space
* Network engineers focus on making changes to the IP and DHCP settings on the network
Extensive customer research enabled BlueCat to identify pain points in the management of IP addresses. For many organizations, opening up access to all types of administrative users can cause potential issues as not all administrators have the level of skill required to properly manage DNS and DHCP. This can result in junior administrators introducing configuration changes that can lead to costly network downtime.
“In talking to our customers, we found that most, if not all, of the DNS, DHCP and IPAM configuration was done by senior administrators; which meant that the organization’s highest paid IT staff were spending time on tasks that were better suited to junior administrators,” said Branko Miskov, Director of Product Management at BlueCat Networks. “The problem was how to delegate control to a junior administrator, while still preventing them from entering bad data or making a configuration mistake,” Miskov continued. “Proteus’ new workflow functionality makes it simple for senior administrators to delegate lesser tasks and then review all configuration changes before they are accepted – enabling them to focus the majority of their time on more complex projects that are better suited to their specific skills and pay grade.”
Proteus applies workflow to a number of object operations to control delegation. Administrators delegate to a specific user or user group through access controls, but specify that any changes follow the workflow model according to the following methodology:
1. Following the workflow model, a user makes changes to IPAM data in a sandbox environment.
2. Each change generates a ‘request’ to a group of administrators to approve or reject the change. Requests are visible to administrators and users who have full control over the objects.
3. When an administrator approves the change, all updates are realized and the system indicates that it was the approving administrator who issued the updates. Alternatively, if an administrator rejects the change, it will be discarded and any other associated changes will be reverted.
“While desktop spreadsheets are inexpensive and many people use them for ad-hoc analysis, reporting and other common tasks, their disadvantages often lead to higher business costs due to poor management of information,” said David Stodder, VP & Research Director with Ventana Research. “Spreadsheet use is error-prone; just search for ‘spreadsheet error’ on the Web and you will get an idea of the pervasiveness of this problem. They are also difficult to audit and clumsy to work with when performing the collaborative, repetitive business processes found in IP address management. Thus, we do not believe that spreadsheets are the best tools for integrating information with workflow automation and managing the sharing of particular workloads, which are crucial to optimizing IP address management. BlueCat’s enhancements to its Proteus IPAM solution will help organizations migrate off of spreadsheets and be better able to handle the increasing challenges of IP address management.”
About BlueCat Networks
BlueCat Networks, the IPAM Intelligence Company™, is a profitable, rapidly growing leading provider of enterprise-class IP Address Management (IPAM) platforms and secure DNS/DHCP network administration appliances. Today, thousands of BlueCat’s award-winning Proteus™ IPAM platforms and Adonis™ family of DNS/DHCP appliances have been successfully deployed to meet the rising IP management demands of government, military, financial services, retail and manufacturing organizations worldwide. Find out why more Fortune companies choose BlueCat solutions to gain complete, centralized Command and Control of their IP networks at http://www.bluecatnetworks.com.