Graph theoretical approach for automated IP lifecycle management in telco networks

IP address management (IPAM) systems are commonly used in the telecommunication industry to serve resource management for large‐scaled IP networks. In resource management, IPAM provides network operators a live IP lifecycle support with an easier use on IP inventory while providing the scaling and high performance. Throughout the management of IP lifecycle, having up‐to‐date topology information plays a key role because of the rapidly changing usage of the IP addresses. Furthermore, if the usage information which corresponds to data taken from the real topology for a specific block does not match with the information in planned state, there arises an anomaly situation. And if this anomaly is not taken under control, especially for the large‐scaled networks, it causes a considerable increase in the operational cost (OPEX) of the internet service providers (ISPs). Thus, keeping track of this resource and checking the anomaly cases make a smooth functioning process through the lifecycle of an IP block in telecom applications. However, the techniques used in traditional IPAMs are mostly not covering track of IP usage. For this purpose, we propose an attribute‐based IP management module (KIP), which consists of three engines by covering the three active states of the IP lifecycle. In this way, KIP serves efficient IP management with minimum traversal time, anomaly rate, and planning time. Compared to previous methods, our method has addressed three additional challenges that significantly impact an effective IP lifecycle management by regarding device‐specific information, such as connectivity, anomaly situation, and planning.