IP Address Scanner

What is IP scanning?

IP scanning is the ongoing IT task of analyzing a business network to discover IP addresses and identify relevant information associated with those IP addresses and devices. With this tool, admins can set a specified range of addresses to discover any IP addresses within that range.

In today’s modern environment, it’s essential for digital networks to deliver 24/7 business continuity. With so many interconnected devices running on a network at any given time, maintaining this level of continuity can be challenging, especially without effective monitoring practices that keep track of all those devices. Before you can begin monitoring, you need to perform a thorough IP scan either manually or, preferably, with a tool that delivers visibility into all the devices on your network.

An IP address scanner can help you manage your network. It can quickly discover all the IP addresses within a set range so you can start monitoring right away and deliver the network availability users expect.

How does an IP scanner work?

In simple terms, an IP scanner works either by conducting ICMP ping sweeps to find a range of IP addresses or by using SNMP scans to map network topology. Indirect discovery, or neighbor scans, can retrieve device status by scanning a neighbor ARP table of active IP addresses.

How exactly does an IP scanner tool use these three main protocols to discover IP addresses?

• ICMP scans (ping sweeps): An IP network scanner that uses this protocol will scan your network using ICMP message packets, pinging all of the network entities within the given IP range. Depending on the ICMP echo reply received in response to these messages, the IP range scanner will display the status and other information about the IP address.
• SNMP scans: An IP scanner tool combines SNMP’s proactive and reactive scanning approaches to discover all the IP addresses within a given range.
• Neighbor discovery from ARP tables: A network IP finder uses this protocol to leverage previously existing ARP tables that already have IP addresses mapped to MAC devices to rediscover network devices or engage in a neighbor discovery process.

SolarWinds^® IP Address Manager (IPAM) specifically works by scanning IP addresses and subnets to automatically detect changes whenever they occur. IPAM allows admins to choose between using any of the three protocols above based on what best suits the specific network environment. Plus, IPAM can scan as often as every 10 minutes, or as little as once per week. You have the freedom to schedule scans at the frequency that best suits your needs.

What are the benefits of using an IP scanner?

Discovering and managing IP addresses is a complicated process in most cases. An IP scanner provides major advantages over manual IP scanning. It can deliver essential information more quickly, provide automatic updates, alert admins to problem areas, and provide information to assist with proactive network mapping and organization.

Specifically, an IP network scanner, like SolarWinds® IPAM, can prove beneficial in several key areas:

• Compliance: Sometimes IP addresses are necessary for legal or regulatory compliance. Using an IP scanner ensures you have important information at your fingertips and more quickly pinpoint exactly where a compliance issue arose.
• Network information and health: An IP scanner or subnet scanner helps organize your subnets and IP addresses. By seeing which devices have which IP addresses assigned to them, you are empowered to prevent conflicts and network outages.

What other IP tool features does IPAM have?

IPAM offers robust IP tool features, including IP address tracking, alerting and reporting, and integrated management of DHCP, DNS, and IP addresses. IPAM can operate in hybrid environments that include local devices, VMware, and cloud monitoring. IPAM also allows network admins to easily delegate IP management to other team members or departments.

More specifically, with IPAM you can:

• Automate IP address discovery, which means you can scan the network using automated neighbor and subnet discovery for all IP addresses and their individual statuses.
• Network scanner to gain more information about your systems
• Automatically discover and track IP addresses to save time and improve your network reliability.
• Find and reclaim IP addresses no matter whether they’re abandoned, static, or reserved, and monitor DHCP address pools.
• IP Planning to optimize IP capacity and successfully manage your IP address space.
• Manage IPv4 and IPv6 addresses more easily by eliminating complex spreadsheets and automating the process.
• Optimally allocate IP addresses in subnets for simplified IP address organization and management.

If you’re interested in more information on IPAM and its features, check out our IP Address Management Software Guide.

Does IP Scanner help with reducing network errors?

It does. Adding ever more devices to organizations’ networks makes staying on top of the many IP addresses connected to these devices increasingly challenging. Those challenges lead to using complex spreadsheets, human errors, and miscommunications that can all cause network downtime if you aren’t careful. By automating the process, a LAN IP scanner or other IP Scanner can eliminate these and other errors.

Three main categories of network errors IP Scanner can help with are:

• Human errors: With IP requests and changes coming in practically every second, it’s inevitable that any human IP address management effort is going to have errors. With an automated IP scan, you can help eliminate those errors.
• Multiple administrators for IP management: When multiple admins handle a task like IP management, it can be difficult to keep track of all the changes happening and who made them. That makes it difficult to create workflows and ensure the accuracy of each input.
• Lack of real-time data availability: Without an IP scanner, IP addresses are often stored in unwieldy spreadsheets, making it difficult to create an audit trail or determine who changed what information. Plus, it takes far longer to manually update a spreadsheet than for an IP scanner tool to update its records, meaning that the information in spreadsheets is often outdated.

All of these problems can lead to network errors and slow down the process of resolving those errors when they do occur. By automating the IP scan process and ensuring that devices are always discovered, and their records are up to date, an IP scanner reduces network errors and creates a smoother troubleshooting process.