We had a few customers asking about some additional ways to integrate numbering parameters into assigning and allocating IP addresses. To “do it right” we ended up building a numbering authority feature into ProVision 7.2.
We will be expanding our integration of this back-end upgrade into new features, but in the meantime, here are some real-world scenarios that might be useful to you. In this iteration all the number functions enforce uniqueness, so we end up with some really useful elements that can make provisioning workflows easier to use and reduce the reliance on third party fields/entries that are lacking validation.
Sequential values
When defining a pool of numerical objects, you have some options. Think of a ticketing queue. You get #1, the second request gets #2 and so on. Defining a pool of sequential values allows you control to create arbitrary number pools instead of coding this outside of ProVision and integrating the data via yet another script. Values can be reused or one-time depending on your use case.
Multi-Range values
Think VLANs – setting discrete ranges of sequential values gives you the ability to move around various pools that you have defined for a variety of purposes. We already leverage this on the back-end for our VLAN Manager, and have expanded its scope to allow more instances of it to be used for other customer purposes that are non-VLAN related. Values can be reused or one-time depending on your use case.
IPv6 Sparse Allocation
This was a fun one – we have some clients doing some interesting things with sparse allocation and IPv6, but didn’t want to have to define policies so explicitly. Our answer was defining a system where you can assign the Sparse Allocation behavior to a given IPv6 block and be assured that in addition to the other metadata tied to the aggregate (region, tab, LIR, etc.) – your allocation rule(s) will be respected.
UUIDs
Straight forward – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universally_unique_identifier
