Your IP address spreadsheet: A network menace

Are you still using a spreadsheet to manage IP addresses? IPAM is the only way to achieve secure, transparent, and efficient network management.

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Are you still using an IP address spreadsheet to manage all the IP addresses on your network?

Gambling with spreadsheets to manage core business functions can be a risky threat—and even catastrophic. When it comes to IP address management, Excel spreadsheets were never intended to manage network infrastructure.

Replacing spreadsheets for IP address management (IPAM) is the only way to achieve secure, transparent, and efficient network management. Leave the administrative headaches of managing by spreadsheet behind.

In this post, we’ll delve into the limitations of doing DNS (and specifically IP management) by spreadsheet. After that, we’ll discuss when you should abandon the approach. Finally, we’ll touch on the benefits of investing in an IPAM enterprise tool.

The perils of your IP address spreadsheet

There are many examples of why spreadsheets shouldn’t be used to manage complex, technical tasks. One retrospective of the top spreadsheet errors of the decade might make you wince. They include overselling 10,000 seats at the 2012 Olympics in London and overstating the price of Tibco Software by $100 million.

The trouble with spreadsheets for IPAM in particular

IP address management is, by definition, a complex and difficult task. Why would you use a spreadsheet to handle such a high-risk system on your network? Maybe some of these troubling scenarios sound familiar:

The DNS nuclear football

One of our customers called their IP address management spreadsheet the “nuclear football”. Only a small number of DNS admins had access to it. They would hand off its management as workdays started and ended around the globe. And they knew that accidentally deleting data in those spreadsheets—or even losing the files altogether—would take their network down.

When to get rid of your IP address spreadsheet

For small systems in a single geographic location without a lot of IP addresses to manage, using a spreadsheet as your IP address tracker may work just fine. However, it can quickly get out of hand as your network grows.

Relying on a homegrown IP address allocation spreadsheet template can pose serious problems when your organization has multiple geographic locations and a distributed DNS model. For example, they’re particularly problematic when your IP network is expanding. Or when you have numerous devices with unique MAC addresses constantly joining and leaving the network.

It seems like a no-brainer to replace spreadsheets with enterprise application solutions in areas like HR or finance. So, why not the same for a far more complicated and high-risk system such as IPAM?

IPAM plans, tracks, and manages IP address space

The benefits of an IPAM solution over your IP address spreadsheet

Implement an IPAM solution as part of your larger DDI infrastructure, and you’ll quickly see the benefits.


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Rebekah Taylor is a former journalist turned freelance writer and editor who has been translating technical speak into prose for more than two decades. Her first job in the early 2000s was at a small start-up called VMware. She holds degrees from Cornell University and Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism.

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