Address allocation
The process of selecting an address or prefix from a larger pool and making it available for use. Allocation does not always mean the address has been configured on a device yet.
Category glossary
Search all termsIPAM
63 definitions associated with IPAM.
Address assignment
The act of associating an allocated IP address or prefix with a specific interface, device, customer, service, or purpose. IPAM systems track assignments to reduce duplication and preserve ownership history.
Address block
A contiguous range of IP addresses represented by a network and prefix length, such as 192.0.2.0/24 or 2001:db8::/32. Blocks may be allocated, assigned, reserved, delegated, or subdivided.
Address conflict
A condition in which two interfaces attempt to use the same IP address on the same logical network. Symptoms can include intermittent connectivity, ARP or Neighbor Discovery instability, and DHCP declines.
Address management
The policies, workflows, records, and automation used to plan, assign, reclaim, audit, and report on IP addresses and prefixes. It is broader than simply maintaining a spreadsheet of free addresses.
Address pool
A set of addresses available for dynamic allocation. A pool is normally associated with a subnet or link and may be restricted by policies, classes, exclusions, or utilization thresholds.
Address reservation
A policy that associates a particular address with a known client identity so the server consistently offers that address. Some products distinguish a reservation from a fixed address that sits outside a dynamic pool.
Address scope
The reachability domain of an address. IPv6 explicitly defines scopes such as interface-local, link-local, and global, while operational IPAM tools may also use scope to mean an administrative partition or DHCP range.
Address space
The complete set of addresses being considered, such as all IPv4 addresses, a private enterprise block, or a tenant-specific VRF. Address space can overlap when routing domains are isolated.
Address utilization
A measurement of how much of a network, pool, or prefix is assigned, reserved, leased, or otherwise unavailable. The numerator and denominator should be defined because products may treat network, broadcast, excluded, and reserved addresses differently.
ARIN
The Regional Internet Registry serving the United States, Canada, parts of the Caribbean, and North Atlantic islands. It allocates and registers Internet number resources within its service region.
Bogon
An address or prefix that should not appear as legitimate Internet-routed source or destination space, such as unallocated, reserved, or improperly advertised space. Bogon lists change as registries allocate resources.
BYOIP
Bring Your Own IP, a cloud service capability that lets an organization advertise or use address space it owns through a cloud provider. It requires registry authorization, routing controls, and careful IPAM ownership tracking.
Capacity planning
Forecasting when address pools, prefixes, DHCP capacity, or DNS infrastructure will need expansion. Useful inputs include utilization, growth rate, lease churn, query rate, and failure-domain requirements.
Carrier-grade NAT (CGN)
Large-scale address translation used by service providers to share public IPv4 addresses among customers, commonly using 100.64.0.0/10 on the provider side. CGN complicates attribution and end-to-end address visibility.
CIDR
Classless Inter-Domain Routing, the use of variable-length prefixes rather than legacy address classes. CIDR notation combines an address with a prefix length, such as 10.20.0.0/16.
Cloud IPAM
Address planning and lifecycle management integrated with cloud accounts, virtual networks, subnets, and interfaces. It often reconciles provider inventory with an enterprise source of truth.
Container
An aggregate network object used to organize or subdivide address space but not necessarily treated as a directly usable subnet. Products may call it a network container, aggregate, block, or parent prefix.
Delegated prefix
An IPv6 prefix assigned to a requesting router for use on downstream links. The router can subnet the delegated prefix without receiving individual address leases for every downstream host.
Extensible attribute
A custom metadata field attached to a DDI object, such as owner, environment, business unit, site, application, or lifecycle state. In Infoblox NIOS, Extensible Attributes are widely used for search, policy, automation, and reporting.
FEC
Forwarding Equivalence Class, an MPLS concept grouping packets that receive the same forwarding treatment. It can appear in network architecture documents but is not a core DDI object.
Free address
An address that the IPAM system believes is not assigned, reserved, leased, discovered, or otherwise unavailable. "Free" is trustworthy only when discovery and reconciliation are current.
High-water mark
A configured or observed utilization threshold indicating that an address pool or resource is approaching exhaustion. Alerts should leave enough time to expand, reclaim, or redesign the pool.
Host bits
The bits of an address not covered by the network prefix. They identify addresses within the subnet and determine the number of possible interface addresses.
Instance address
An address associated with a cloud compute instance or virtual network interface. It may be private, public, ephemeral, static, primary, secondary, or translated depending on the provider.
IP address discovery
The process of finding addresses and devices in use through methods such as ping, ARP, Neighbor Discovery, SNMP, switch tables, cloud APIs, DNS, and DHCP leases. Discovery results should be reconciled rather than treated as perfect truth.
IP address lifecycle
The stages through which an address or prefix moves, such as planned, reserved, assigned, active, discovered, quarantined, released, reclaimed, and archived. Defined lifecycle states make automation and audits safer.
IP address plan
A documented design for allocating prefixes and addresses by site, environment, function, growth, routing boundary, and ownership. Good plans preserve summarization and leave room for expansion.
IPAM
IP Address Management, the discipline and tooling used to plan, allocate, assign, discover, reconcile, document, audit, and automate IP addresses and prefixes. Mature IPAM also links addresses to DNS, DHCP, devices, sites, owners, and workflows.
IPAM reconciliation
Comparison of intended IPAM data with observed network, cloud, DNS, and DHCP state, followed by review or correction of differences. Reconciliation helps find stale, duplicate, unmanaged, and orphaned resources.
IPAM utilization
The percentage or count of addresses and prefixes considered consumed within a container or subnet. Reports should distinguish assigned, leased, reserved, excluded, discovered, and unavailable states.
Low-water mark
A threshold indicating that available address capacity has fallen below a desired reserve. It can trigger alerts, expansion, or automated allocation from a parent block.
Metadata
Descriptive attributes associated with DDI objects, such as owner, site, application, environment, status, ticket, or cost center. Consistent metadata enables automation, search, reporting, and governance.
Network
A prefix-defined IP block used as a routing, subnet, or administrative object. Product terminology may distinguish a usable network from a larger container or aggregate.
Network bits
The leading address bits selected by a prefix length or subnet mask. They identify the network, while remaining bits identify addresses within it.
Network container
An aggregate IPAM object that holds subnets or child containers and supports hierarchical allocation. In Infoblox, next-available-network functions can allocate children from a container.
Network discovery
Automated collection of devices, interfaces, addresses, VLANs, routes, and related data from network infrastructure or cloud APIs. Discovery expands visibility but must be reconciled with intended ownership and status.
Network view
An administrative routing-domain context that allows overlapping address space to be represented separately. In Infoblox, networks and related IPAM objects belong to a network view.
Next available IP
A function that selects an address the IPAM system currently considers available within a specified network or set of networks. Safe use depends on accurate leases, reservations, discovery, exclusions, and transaction locking.
Next available network
A function that selects an unused child prefix of a requested size from a parent container. It is commonly used by automation to allocate subnets while preserving centralized ownership.
Orphaned record
A DNS or IPAM object whose intended owner, target, device, or application no longer exists or cannot be identified. Orphans create security risk and complicate address reclamation.
Overlapping address space
Use of the same IP prefixes in separate routing or tenant domains. IPAM must track the associated VRF, network view, tenant, or context so identical addresses remain distinguishable.
Pool exhaustion
A state in which no eligible addresses or prefixes remain for new clients. Causes include genuine growth, excessive lease duration, starvation attacks, stale leases, exclusions, or a poorly sized subnet.
Prefix
A contiguous IP address block identified by leading network bits and a prefix length. Prefixes support routing aggregation, subnetting, allocation, and policy.
Prefix length
The number of leading bits that identify the network portion of an address, written after a slash. Larger prefix-length numbers represent smaller address blocks.
Prefix utilization
A measure of how much child space within an aggregate prefix has been allocated or assigned. It differs from host-address utilization inside a single subnet.
Race condition
A timing problem in which concurrent processes read the same available resource and both attempt to allocate or modify it. Transactional allocation or server-side next-available functions help avoid duplicate assignments.
Reconciliation
The process of comparing records from multiple systems and resolving differences to maintain a trustworthy source of truth. Inputs may include DDI databases, network discovery, cloud inventory, CMDB, and security telemetry.
Reverse delegation
Delegation of authority for part of in-addr.arpa or ip6.arpa to the organization responsible for an address block. IPv4 prefixes not aligned on octet boundaries may require RFC 2317 techniques.
RIR
Regional Internet Registry, one of the organizations that allocate and register IP address and autonomous system number resources within a service region. The five RIRs are AFRINIC, APNIC, ARIN, LACNIC, and RIPE NCC.
Route aggregation
Combining multiple contiguous prefixes into a larger summary route. Hierarchical address planning preserves aggregation and reduces routing-table size and policy complexity.
Routing domain
A set of interfaces and prefixes sharing a routing table or routing policy context. VRFs and tenants can create separate domains with overlapping address space.
Scope
A context defining which addresses, options, or policies apply. Microsoft DHCP uses scope for an IPv4 subnet and pool, while other systems may use the term for IPv6 reachability or administrative visibility.
Scope utilization
The amount of a DHCP scope currently leased, reserved, excluded, or available. Alerts should account for addresses that are not eligible for ordinary allocation.
Source of truth
The system or governed data set designated as authoritative for a class of information. In DDI, one system may own intended allocation while discovery or DHCP owns observed runtime state, so ownership must be explicit.
Stale record
A record that no longer reflects the current device, address, owner, or service. Stale data can cause misrouting, security exposure, and incorrect capacity reports.
Subnet
A prefix used as an on-link network or administrative allocation unit. In IPv4 it has a network mask and usually network and broadcast addresses; IPv6 LANs commonly use /64.
Subnet ID
The portion of an address plan used to distinguish subnets within a larger assigned prefix. In IPv6 enterprise planning, it often refers to bits between the global routing prefix and the interface identifier.
Supernet
A larger aggregate prefix that contains multiple smaller networks. Supernetting supports route summarization and hierarchical address management.
Tag
A label or key-value marker used to categorize DDI objects for search, automation, access control, reporting, or lifecycle policy. The exact feature may be called metadata, extensible attribute, or custom property.
Unmanaged address
An address observed on the network but not represented as an approved assignment in IPAM. It may be legitimate shadow IT, stale discovery, a security issue, or a documentation gap.
VLAN
Virtual LAN, a Layer 2 broadcast-domain segmentation identified by a VLAN ID on Ethernet networks. A VLAN often maps to one or more IP subnets, but the relationship is not inherently one-to-one.
VRF
Virtual Routing and Forwarding, a separate routing-table context on a device or network. VRFs allow overlapping addresses and should be modeled explicitly in IPAM or network views.