When I started doing network stuff, it was all quite simple. You had one physical box. That box had one physical ethernet port and that port had just one IP address bound to it which was tagged on one VLAN. It was quite easy to build an excel table with all your bits of kit, to include their DNS name, IP address, subnet, gateway, VLAN ID, etc.

Nowadays, it's a bit more complex - and I'm finding that to be the understatement of the millenium . I'm working with HP blade servers, using Flex-10 virtual connect with a bit of VMware virtualisation on top. Argh! ILO IP, ESXi management IP, multiple VM IPs...

If that wasn't complex enough, listing all of that in a spreadsheet is a little tricky: the order in which you lay things out depends from which aspect you're looking at it. For example, some people just want to see the ILO addresses (one for each box). Others want to see just the VMware management IPs (ESXi host IPs). Others want to see all the IPs of all the virtual NICs of each VM, and that's just in one physical box. I'd really like to have just one sheet which holds all the data, whilst being easy to "sort" or find stuff.

So for those of you that do IT management with virtualisation on top, how do you manage your IP / DNS lists? Any templates or pointers for me?

Edit: Of course, all of this info is typically held in some kind of database which means you can cross link and look up data as you need it. Is there something in Excel that allows this or should I just look at inputing the data into a DB (again, which system, DB, any templates out there?)

Ta

I get the consultants to do that bit, tidy up their scruffy documentation a bit and send it on to the customer with version control and call it Project Management

Seriously though, I will ask our VMware guys what they find is the easiest tool to use for this and let you know

Thanks Andy!

Doing a quick search, there are loads of IPAMs (IP Address Management systems) out there.

But I need something that's easy to use and free. Also, as we're building stuff, I need it to be easily editable

IP address management? Free?

Either IPplan or NMIS should do the job for ya...

Thanks Chris.

Also looking at Rack Tables. It's very nice and has a nice rack editor so it's quite "visual".

Forgot to mention that there's no need for online diagnostics, discovery services, etc. It can really be a static, "offline" installation, it's purely for documentation, not necessarily troubleshooting

rack tables is nice as well.

If you were offering any kind of value-add services though... The ability to pick up config changes as they happen is always good.

GLPI is also good (albeit french) - and can tie into OCS inventory for live asset management right down to software-revision tracking.

Just depends how far you want to go with it I guess

We use a combination of Infoblox, NetSupportDNA and an Access Database at work.

Its a bit messy, but seems to work ok.

Customer is French, so will look at GLPI too

Customer is French, so will look at GLPI too

That will be £500 for consultancy please Hahahaha

Thanks for the suggestions.

Executive decision landed: we're sticking to Excel and I'll have a template file I can use.