Is Managing Your IP Addresses a Nightmare? Automate to Save Time and Money!

Assigning and managing IP addresses used to be a reasonably straightforward process. Broadband service providers (BSPs) had easy and plentiful access to large, continuous IP address pools.

But those days have long gone. Due to the exhaustion of IPv4 addresses—and the lengthy transition period in the move to IPv6—assigning IP addresses has become a costly, complex, and time-consuming affair. As a network engineer, you are likely becoming frustrated with the effort required to organize, manage, and track IP addresses in your broadband access network. You’re probably also concerned that current processes are leaving some public IPv4 addresses “stranded” and unusable, reducing critical resource availability.

The Roadmap Out of Manual Processes and Human Error

To tackle the problem of shrinking continuous IP address pools, many BSPs implement “multi-netting” in their networks, allowing them to assign multiple subnets to the same domain. However, multi-netting requires constant tracking, reconfiguration, and management. And making multiple subnet pools available for IP assignment leads to those stranded addresses.

While multi-netting is a must in today's environment where IPv4 addresses are being exhausted, the overhead to manage these networks is constantly increasing due to the inherent complexity. Organizing, managing, and tracking these IP address subnets manually is time-consuming. Plus, it requires constant device configuration throughout the network, and this manual process is susceptible to human error too.

Managing IPv4 address pools is an important task—but it is not an area where you should spend your time. As a network engineer, your focus should be on architecting a next-generation network, executing strategic initiatives that lower network operating costs, and contributing to products and services that enhance the subscriber experience and create new revenue streams.

What if there was a way to automate IPv4 address assignments from a centralized repository?

Eliminating IP Address Management Pain Points

At Calix, our guiding principle is to help BSPs simplify their networks and drive operational efficiencies. This means identifying pain points and implementing innovative solutions to address the issues BSPs face.

Calix introduces innovations regularly as part of our quarterly cadence releases. The current quarterly release includes Automated Access Network Gateway (AANG) capabilities. This is the industry’s first solution to fully automate the management of IPv4 addresses—including simplifying IP address management workflow.

The solution allows the DHCP server to automatically set a unique public IP address for a subscriber service from a shared repository. The repository holds all your IPv4 public address pools and makes them available anywhere. By deploying the AANG solution on the Calix Intelligent Access EDGE™ platform, BSPs can:

• Reduce the complexity of managing multiple subnets. By automating IP address allocation, BSPs can eliminate the major pain point of manually implementing and managing complex IPv4 subnets.
• Preserves the valuable IPv4 address pools. By optimizing and automating the utilization of IPv4 addresses, BSPs can eliminate instances of “stranded” and “wasted” IPv4 addresses that become unavailable during the subnetting process, ensuring maximum return on investment for IP addresses.
• Free up network engineering resources. Automating IP address management allows BSPs to free up network engineers to focus on more critical network tasks that enhance the subscriber experience.
• Avoid instances of human error. Manual oversight of the increasingly complex IPv4 address allocation process leads to the possibility of human error—which potentially leads to subscriber-impacting outages. Automation speeds up the process and guards against human error.

This solution directly addresses the pain points BSPs face. Plus, managing the exhaustion of available IPv4 addresses drives up network operating costs and complexity, so this solution may even significantly impact a service provider’s bottom line.

By automating IPv4 assignments from a centralized repository, the new Automated Access Network Gateway from Calix eliminates pain points, reduces human error, and frees up engineers to focus on higher-value work that can further enhance the subscriber experience.

Check out our Solutions Brief to learn more about how the new Automated Access Network Gateway can transform your network operations.