IP Address Selection Means Research And Scheme Organization
For many businesses, an Internet Protocol (IP) address may as well be a random set of numbers. As long as the internet works and the address is static for in-house network management, any address will work. Unfortunately, decades after worldwide adoption use and reuse of addresses, there are a few things to consider before settling on a specific address and network scheme. Here are a few address issues to consider as you look for an address or consider changing your own.
Previous Traffic Problems
Not every IP address comes with a clean slate of honest access. It's rare, but an address could have a previous owner involved in a lot of illicit traffic. This normally isn't a problem, as an investigative party can figure out who the new owner is and call off their search, but it could be a problem if there was an attack in progress.
Not all DDoS attacks are caused by targeted, careful enemies; your new address could be under bombardment by a passive, automated set of attacks that will continue to run until an overseas hacker with no real legal danger feels like turning the attack off.
A more innocent source of problems would be getting more traffic than your service provider can deliver at your current price point. Usually, your web traffic only matters if information is being retrieved, not just from requests. However, if you're being bombarded by requests from a world class store's customers and using a small ISP or your own equipment, you may have to invest in some skilled networking professionals and equipment to deny or reroute the traffic.
Does Your Address Take Well To Memorizing?
A much smaller concern is whether your technicians can map out schemes for your network and remember the scheme. Although it's the responsibility of the networking team to plan and properly automate a network scheme, having an easy to remember address can make new system setup and changes a lot easier.
Repetitive or iconic numbers are best. Iconic means that the number can be associated to something that most technicians can identify with, such as the workplace area code, a street number, or something familiar to the team--not to the management, leadership, or anyone else but just to the people actually working on the systems.
It can be difficult to find an address with repetitive numbers. If you have an address with that benefit, contact an IP address management professional to sell your IPv4 address and help out someone trying to plan their network better.
