At the basic tier of networking, many hobbyists, small businesses or any services without a dedicated technician may just take the IP address given to them. Although any IP address is part of a bigger, regional scheme, the somewhat random arrangements can be a pain to memorize, and name resolution services such as DNS can't be relied on for everything. Before accepting any jumped mass of numbers for your address, consider how picking the best address arrangement could work for you. 

Does IP Address Design Matter?

Before getting too deep into "cherry picking" IP addresses, know that this isn't a claim of dire importance. These tips can help, but they're not going to make or break your network operations. That said, anything that could make administration easier should be welcome in the hectic world of networking--especially networking with lots of curious end users and technicians.

The point of picking address with an eye for design is to get something that's appealing to the eye or easily memorized. Repeating numbers and number patterns are key here since it's all about making sure that your IP scheme is easier to manage for you and your technical staff.

Number patterns can be anything from an area code in part of the IP address to zip codes or even full phone numbers. If it's something that your regional, cultural or career group can relate to as a whole, it can make administration easier.

DNS Doesn't Always Save The Day

The technicians reading this article are probably shaking their heads and saying, "No, article guy. DNS takes care of the IP address number problem, and you're just writing to fill a quota." 

Nearly touché, technician, but is your DNS server perfect? The Domain Name System (DNS) service is what changes IP addresses to words that people can understand, but it isn't a perfect system. Like any service, DNS is actually a structure of code that was written by a human and is subject to the same quirky bugs and performance issues as any other service.

What kind of machine is your DNS service running on? Unless you're part of a big, enterprise network with a dedicated DNS machine, it's likely running as a service (like a program, but with a small presence) on top of many other activities. DNS still has to manage the conversion of every name that it records with an IP address, which can be a burden on the system.

DNS alone won't slow down the system (unless it's the vector/technique used for a Denial of Service attack), but if the rest of the server is slowing down due to heavy resource use, the DNS service will slow down as well. Even without resources being overtasked, DNS errors are fairly common on certain systems when major configuration changes take place.

When DNS problems happen, technicians will be scrambling through status boards and notes to manually modify servers using IP addresses. If you need to change the main, external IP address for your business or service and have to edit multiple scripts for automated repairs--or if you don't have anything automated and need to create automated scripts--a simple IP address with repetition or patterns can make these dire situations less hectic. 

Keep it simple by speaking with APNIC IP brokers to get an IP address that you and your technicians can work with faster.

Share