Calculating IP usage - Micetro - 26.1.0

Micetro Reference Articles
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en-US
Product name
Micetro
Version
26.1.0

As you connect to the services and enable discovery, Micetro reads incoming data to calculate IP address usage. It then compares the usage with the license keys provided at the time of purchase to display the number of IP addresses in use, based on the encoded information in the keys. If you are unsure about your IP count, the number can be negotiated with the sales team (best effort).

Note: BlueCat Networks does not lock the system in any way if the license count is exceeded. Sustaining services is our top priority.

The number of zones, IP addresses, IP ranges, and appliances being used are displayed at the top of each relative module tile on the License management section of the Admin page. Micetro displays the total usage across all modules at the top of the page.

How Micetro calculates IP address usage

Micetro considers an IP address to be active when:

  1. There is a DNS record assigned to the IP address (data from the DNS server).
  2. There is an active lease in a DHCP pool. This will cause usage to fluctuate in the license count.
  3. There is a DHCP reservation configured for the IP address.
  4. The IP address has been assigned as Static.
  5. Discovery is enabled and the IP address has been discovered as active within the last 30 days.
Note: Micetro will only count dual-stacked clients as one IP (IPV4/IPV6).

In the System settings, there is a section called Determine address usage. By default, all settings in this section are enabled upon installation.


In the Determine address usage section of the system settings, you can configure the conditions that determine if a static IP address is considered to be active. Within DHCP address pools, an IP address is only considered to be active if there is a DHCP lease or reservation associated wtih it.

Micetro is designed to help administrators gain a better understanding of their networks and users. Administrators can toggle the license count configuration on and off for a more granular picture of where the usage is coming from, which then allows them to focus on clean-up.

Common reasons for excessive IP usage:

  • Stale DNS records (static or missed by AD scavenging).
  • Old automation tools that were using custom properties on the IPs, but were not cleaned up.
  • Old claims that were not cleaned up.
  • DHCP reservations that are not in use.
  • DHCP lease times that need to be adjusted.

Viewing IP usage in Micetro

Micetro provides a comprehensive view of your network, allowing you to quickly assess its status and understand what is happening in real-time. As you use Micetro, you will naturally become more knowledgeable about the environment and start to recognize patterns of usage, as well as identifying issues in configurations.

Network utilization is shown in the data grid on the IPAM page.


The Utilization column of the IPAM data grid displays a network's usage as a percentage.

To view or sort the grid by the most highly utilized networks, switch to “flat view”, and then select the Utilization column header. The most highly utilized networks will be listed at the top of the grid.

Tip: You can use a quick filter (uses reg-ex) to find all subnets above a certain capacity (utilization < 80). Additional filtering can be added for any of the ranges or scopes (type = Scope and (utilization > 0).

Micetro also displays the total number of ranges in the filter search bar.


The Utilization column of the IPAM page after the quick filter is used to filter the utilization to < 10.

Viewing and reclaiming IPs at the IP level

When you open a static range or a DHCP scope, you can also view the DNS data on the IP address.

Tip: If you know a DHCP scope or network is not in use, you can safely select all and delete all of the DNS data from it by selecting Clear IP address.

The options to Ping IP address and Clear IP address can be accessed and selected in the Row ... menu for a specific IP address.
Note: Deleting a range does not delete the DNS data from the zone. If a new range is created and the DNS data is still in the zone, it will re-populate in the tool.

Cleaning up stale DNS records

It is not uncommon for Active Directory (AD) records to be missed in scavenging. Micetro provides the ability to clean up stale records from within the DNS zone.

To clean up stale DNS records from an AD zone:

  1. Open the AD zone.
    The DNS page filtered for AD integrated zones using the filter in the left sidebar.
  2. Sort by Timestamp.
    Select the Timestamp column header in the data grid to sort the records by timestamp.

    You can choose to delete records in bulk here (Shift or Ctrl, then select) based on the age of the record. This is a good indicator that the AD scavenging should also be adjusted.

These are just a few ways that Micetro can be used to assist you in reclaiming IP space.

Other useful tools to assist are the Reports module and the API (if you have an internal Dev/Ops team) to automate the clean-up processes once they are identified.