Introduction to IPAM

Use SolarWinds IP Address Manager to save time and enhance network reliability with integrated DHCP, DNS, and IP address management. From a single dashboard, you can monitor your entire IP address space and get in-depth details on how your IPs have been used. With the IPAM console, you can find open IP addresses, make DHCP reservations and DNS entries.

Download the PDF: IPAM Product Guide (formerly known as Administrator Guide)

How IPAM works

Using ICMP, SNMP, and neighborhood scanning, IPAM gets information about your network devices so you can easily see IP address usage in one dashboard. For more information, see How IPAM works. Custom properties can be used to set up user-defined fields that you can associate with nodes, IP addresses.

Configure IPAM

In IPAM, you can edit various system settings to set variables to address your specific needs and preferences. General settings, thresholds, configuration defaults, visual settings, and more, can be changed from their default settings in IPAM Settings.

IPAM uses SNMP and ICMP to scan and determine the status of your monitored network. In IPAM Settings, you can manually specifiy how your network is scanned for changes.

To access information from devices across your environment, you must set up credentials with the necessary access level. For information Windows, SNMP, Scan, DHCP server, and other credentials, see Manage credentials.

Groups containing other groups, supernets, and subnets can be created using the drag-and-drop interface. This feature helps you organize your network in a way that makes the most sense for your unique environment.

For additional settings that can be configured in IPAM, see Configure IPAM.

Add IP addresses

IPAM has multiple methods for adding IP addresses to be monitored. You can query your Active Directory Domain Controller and add discovered nodes into the SolarWinds database, or import IP addresses using a spreadsheet. Manually enter multiple subnets using the Bulk Add Subnets page.

For more information on adding IP addresses and creating subnets, see Add IP Addresses to IPAM.

Manage subnets and IP addresses

The primary interface for managing subnets and IP addresses is divided into two panes. The left side is a navigation pane featuring a network tree that shows your network, organized into supernets, subnets, and groups. The right side displays information in one of three views, depending on what is selected in the left pane.

In the Manage Subnets & IP Addresses page, the you can edit IP address properties directly in the IP Address view, or you can edit them in the IP Address Details widget on the IP Address Details page.

For information to further manage IP addresses, see Manage Subnets and IP addresses page.

Monitor and manage servers

You can manage Cisco, Infoblox, ISC and Microsoft DHCP servers and DNS servers.

IPAM's integrated DHCP & DNS Management view provides dynamic filtering, efficient workflow, and a streamlined interface for managing your servers directly in IPAM.

Additionally, in IPAM you can add Infoblox servers for monitoring, integrate with VMware, and monitor cloud DNS Zones and records from Amazon Route 53 and Azure DNS services.