Managing your IP addresses isn’t always an easy task. For large networks with a long list of operating addresses, keeping a manual spreadsheet of addresses can be time-consuming—especially when your network is constantly expanding to accommodate new users and devices. The main goal of IP planning is to help make your IP configurations as efficient as possible, all from a centralized control center. IP management involves assigning new units to empty addresses, ensuring your assignments stay under your IP capacity, and solving any inefficiencies with your address configuration. In addition to IP address assignment, IP planning involves subnet creation and management to help maximize the efficiency of your network operations. IP addresses with the same IP address routing prefix can take less time and distance to communicate with each other. A collection of IP addresses beginning with the same prefix is called a subnet, and this is something any IP planning should take into consideration if you’re aiming to optimize traffic flow efficiency. Successful IP planning should also establish a strategy to monitor your DHCP servers, your DNS servers, and dynamic IP addresses that change based on capacity.

How can I plan network and subnet capacity?

The first step in creating a subnet is to assign a unique subnet prefix to the IP addresses in your subnet with the help of a DHCP server, which controls IP address assignments. Once you’ve established a subnet, or potentially a supernet encompassing multiple subnets, the IP addresses within your defined parameters will be available. The only exceptions to this are your network address and your broadcast address, which remain static and predefined. Once you’ve established a subnet, capacity planning should be straightforward since you won’t have to worry about dynamic IP addresses encountering unavailable addresses within your new subnet. For more sophisticated subnets, you can also specify ranges of IP addresses. If you’re dealing with a large subnet with many addresses, establishing IP ranges can help you organize your addresses into more specific, subsidiary units without requiring an entirely new subnet.

What is IPv6 migration?

Soon after the inception of the internet, a standard 16-bit IP address naming protocol was established which has continued to the present day. This 16-digit naming system is IPv4, which allows for 2^32 unique addresses. With over four billion possibilities, IPv4 was able to accommodate enough IP addresses to last until recent years, when IPv6, a 32-bit IP address system, gained prominence as the new IP naming standard. For those who might be concerned about their existing IPv4 resources, IPv6 migration does not eliminate existing IPv4 addresses. IPv6 migration refers to the integration of IPv6 addresses into your network when new addresses need to be named. To establish an effective IPv6 naming system, an IP address planning tool can help centralize IP planning, detect any conflict between IP addresses, and manage DNS and DHCP servers to oversee your dynamic naming process.

How can I create an IP addressing plan?

The first step in a comprehensive IP plan is to identify your network devices. Common scanning processes include ICMP scanning, SNMP scanning, and neighborhood scanning. IP plan software can help automate the scanning process and collect relevant details from your network devices. In your IP management plan, make sure to mark addresses no longer in use. Then, you’ll be ready to make your DHCP reservations and assign DNS names to them. A successful IP address plan will also include the establishment of subnets to improve traffic flow and help organize your most interactive groups of devices. Once you’ve defined your subnets, you can add more addresses in specific ranges for further segmentation. IP address planning tools can help automate many aspects of the IP addressing process, such as discovering network devices and identifying available IP address, to help users more easily execute IP management plans. IP address planning tools can also allow you to import spreadsheets to help speed up the IP address and subnet creation process.

Why is IP subnet planning important?

Organizing your network into subnets is crucial for minimizing traffic travel time and maximizing network efficiency. The packet travel time from one IP address to another is largely dependent on the sequencing of bits at the beginning of the IP address—the more similar the initial digits on your address are, the closer the distance between addresses. Subnet planning can help increase the efficiency of your traffic flow and improve your bandwidth load. Since IP subnet planning involves assigning and managing IP addresses beginning with the same introductory bits, you need to understand which devices on your network are interacting with each other and how often to be able to assign members of a subnet. The goal of subnet planning is to reduce the distance which network traffic must travel between highly interactive devices. Using IP plan software like SolarWinds IP Address Manager, which is designed to let you easily create subnets as well as groups to categorize your subnets, can help make the process of creating and managing subnets easier.

How does IPAM help with IP planning?

SolarWinds IP Address Manager is built to offer address IP address management from a central platform. To save users time and resources, IPAM can automate many steps of the IP planning process, including setup, monitoring, and alerting. To help set up your IP address system, IPAM is designed to consolidate DHCP/DNS management into an intuitive interface. This helps your DHCP server assign new addresses, which will then be named by your DNS server. IPAM’s DHCP scope monitor can also help with DHCP assignments by extracting scopes and emphasizing the scopes in need of more IP assignments. You can keep track of DNS server assignments more easily on your IPAM dashboard. In addition to assigning and monitoring a dynamic IP address system, IPAM includes innovative alerting and reporting tools. Whether it’s an IP address conflict , an address capacity shortage, or an inefficient subnet, the IPAM dashboard is designed to provide real-time alerts and reports.

What other features and tools does IPAM have?

In addition to comprehensive DHCP, DNS, and subnet management, monitoring, and alerts, SolarWinds IP address planning tool offers an array of other useful features. These include: Integration with VMware. SolarWinds IPAM is equipped to integrate with VMware products like VMware vRealize Orchestrator (vRO) and vRealize Automation. Import wizard. IPAM’s import wizard leads you through the process of importing your IP and subnet information from a spreadsheet. This helpful import wizard will also help you transfer any assignments you’ve already set up based on your unique IP planning preferences. Grouping and status icons. The included intuitive, visual icons can help you manage groups of subnets and other related categories. These icons are color-coded, easily sortable, and can help make your IP planning easier. API solutions. IPAM uses SWIS API solutions to help streamline your IP planning experience and keep the IPAM application interface as useful and efficient as possible.

Plan and Manage IP Address Space With Confidence

SolarWinds^® IP Address Manager (IPAM) replaces manual spreadsheets with real-time IP planning visibility. Track subnet capacity, manage DHCP scopes, and plan IPv4 and IPv6 addressing from one dashboard.

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IP Address Planning and Management

IP Capacity Reporting

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Gain Real-Time IP Planning Visibility

SolarWinds IPAM dashboard displaying subnet hierarchy and status indicators.

SolarWinds IP Address Manager (IPAM) replaces manual spreadsheets with a customizable dashboard that tracks IP addresses by utilization. Identify your Top 10 DHCP Subnets and Scopes at a glance and receive automated alerts when subnet or scope utilization crosses a customizable threshold. Drill-down analytics help you minimize bandwidth load and reduce routing traffic inefficiencies. IPAM also monitors and alerts for IP address conflicts in real time, so you can limit network disruptions before users notice.

Track IP address utilization across managed subnets in real time
Receive automated alerts when subnet or scope capacity reaches thresholds
Identify Top 10 DHCP Subnets and Scopes at a glance
Monitor and alert for IP address conflicts before they cause disruptions

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Forecast IP Capacity Before It Becomes a Problem

IP address reservation audit report in SolarWinds IPAM showing display names and assigned devices.

Use IPAM's reporting capabilities to generate customizable subnet IP capacity reports for centralized visibility into IP address utilization. Schedule reports to run at regular intervals so you can consistently track subnet usage over time. With IPAM, you can identify subnets with limited available addresses and plan subnet expansion before capacity issues escalate. These customizable reports also help administrators review IP address utilization trends and DHCP scope availability, supporting better IP capacity planning across the network.

Schedule customizable IP capacity reports to run at regular intervals
Identify constrained subnets and design larger subnets before issues escalate
Project when a subnet or scope might become depleted
Centralize capacity reporting across your entire network

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See DHCP Scopes at a Glance

DHCP scopes dashboard in SolarWinds IPAM showing capacity utilization bars for IP planning filtered for InfoBlox.

DHCP server integration in SolarWinds IPAM lets you add Microsoft DHCP, Cisco, ISC DHCP, and Infoblox servers to a single management console. Define a scanning frequency to automatically discover and import new scopes and subnets into your IPAM database. Split DHCP scopes across multiple servers to distribute address ranges and support DHCP server redundancy. Create, edit, and remove DHCP scopes, and manage supported DNS zones and records—all from the IPAM console, without switching between separate management tools.

Add Microsoft, Cisco, and ISC DHCP servers to one console
Automatically discover new scopes and subnets with customizable scanning
Split scopes to optimize DHCP load balancing
Create, edit, and remove DHCP scopes without switching tools

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Plan Your IPv6 Migration with Less Guesswork

Manage Subnets and IP Addresses console tracking IPv6 addresses for an IPv6 migration plan.

Making the move from IPv4 to IPv6? SolarWinds IP Address Manager lets you add and manage IPv6 subnets and address spaces alongside IPv4. IPAM uses ICMP, SNMP, and neighborhood scanning to gather information about network devices and monitor IP address usage. IPv6 addresses can be organized into groups, supernets, and subnets for efficient network organization. You can configure scanning settings to automatically monitor your network for changes. Manage your IPv6 address space alongside IPv4 from the same IPAM dashboard.

Add IPv6 sites and subnets using standard Network Discovery Protocol
Access routers with IPv6 configuration via SNMP credentials
Organize IPv6 addresses into logical groups for efficient management
Set up scheduled, automatic scanning for active IPv6 address space

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Get More Answers About IP Planning

Learn how to plan IP space, manage capacity, and prepare your network for growth.

What is IP planning and why does it matter?
How do you create an effective IP addressing plan?
How can you plan subnet and IP address capacity?
Why is IP subnet planning important?
How does IPAM improve IP planning?
How should you plan for an IPv4-to-IPv6 migration?
How can DHCP scope monitoring support IP planning?

What is IP planning and why does it matter?

Managing IP addresses becomes harder as networks grow. For large environments with a long list of active addresses, keeping a manual spreadsheet is time-consuming—especially when your network constantly expands to accommodate new users and devices. The main goal of IP planning is to make your IP configurations as efficient as possible, all from a centralized control center.

IP management involves assigning new units to available addresses, ensuring assignments stay within capacity, and resolving configuration inefficiencies. IP planning also involves subnet creation and management to help maximize network efficiency. IP addresses sharing the same routing prefix can communicate with less time and distance. A collection of addresses beginning with the same prefix is called a subnet, and effective IP planning should account for this to optimize traffic flow. Successful IP planning should also establish a strategy to monitor DHCP servers, DNS servers, and dynamic IP addresses that change based on capacity.

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What is IP planning and why does it matter?
Managing IP addresses becomes harder as networks grow. For large environments with a long list of active addresses, keeping a manual spreadsheet is time-consuming—especially when your network constantly expands to accommodate new users and devices. The main goal of IP planning is to make your IP configurations as efficient as possible, all from a centralized control center.
IP management involves assigning new units to available addresses, ensuring assignments stay within capacity, and resolving configuration inefficiencies. IP planning also involves subnet creation and management to help maximize network efficiency. IP addresses sharing the same routing prefix can communicate with less time and distance. A collection of addresses beginning with the same prefix is called a subnet, and effective IP planning should account for this to optimize traffic flow. Successful IP planning should also establish a strategy to monitor DHCP servers, DNS servers, and dynamic IP addresses that change based on capacity.
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Giving us a clear and accurate record of the state of our IP addressing. IP Address Manager will notify us when a subnet is close to capacity allowing us provision a larger subnet in a planned fashion before it becomes a service-affecting issue.

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IP Address Manager

Replace IP tracking spreadsheets with automated IPv4 and IPv6 management.
Manage DHCP, DNS, and IP addresses from one integrated IPAM solution.
Detect IP conflicts, scope depletion, and mismatched DNS entries faster.

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Plan and Manage IP Address Space With Confidence

SolarWinds® IP Address Manager (IPAM) replaces manual spreadsheets with real-time IP planning visibility. Track subnet capacity, manage DHCP scopes, and plan IPv4 and IPv6 addressing from one dashboard.

Optimize IP Address Management

Gain Real-Time IP Planning Visibility

Forecast IP Capacity Before It Becomes a Problem

See DHCP Scopes at a Glance

Plan Your IPv6 Migration with Less Guesswork

Get More Answers About IP Planning

What is IP planning and why does it matter?

How do you create an effective IP addressing plan?

How can you plan subnet and IP address capacity?

Why is IP subnet planning important?

How does IPAM improve IP planning?

How should you plan for an IPv4-to-IPv6 migration?

How can DHCP scope monitoring support IP planning?

What is IP planning and why does it matter?

How do you create an effective IP addressing plan?

How can you plan subnet and IP address capacity?

Why is IP subnet planning important?

How does IPAM improve IP planning?

How should you plan for an IPv4-to-IPv6 migration?

How can DHCP scope monitoring support IP planning?

What Our Customers Say

Automate IP Planning and Management

IP Address Manager

Explore more IPAM tools

Explore More Resources

What is IP planning and why does it matter?

How do you create an effective IP addressing plan?

How can you plan subnet and IP address capacity?

Why is IP subnet planning important?

How does IPAM improve IP planning?

How should you plan for an IPv4-to-IPv6 migration?

How can DHCP scope monitoring support IP planning?

What is IP planning and why does it matter?

How do you create an effective IP addressing plan?

How can you plan subnet and IP address capacity?

Why is IP subnet planning important?

How does IPAM improve IP planning?

How should you plan for an IPv4-to-IPv6 migration?

How can DHCP scope monitoring support IP planning?

SolarWinds^® IP Address Manager (IPAM) replaces manual spreadsheets with real-time IP planning visibility. Track subnet capacity, manage DHCP scopes, and plan IPv4 and IPv6 addressing from one dashboard.