Adding IP Subnets

Reporting by IP subnet is required when you want to base reports on the physical layout of the network.

An IP subnet references objects by IP address rather than by name. An IP subnet is a convenient way of labeling and organizing your network topology for reporting.

For example, an organization might have one office in New York and another in Seattle with computers from both sites located in the same domain
(North America) and connected through a WAN. All computers are in the same domain, but their IP addresses are different as they are in different subnets.

Using Reporter, an administrator in New York can add the New York and Seattle subnets, allowing the administrator to report on only the computers in the relevant subnets. By adding the IP subnets, the administrator can generate reports against local computers for faster collection.

The IP subnet number is verified. If the subnet does not exist within the company, reports are not generated against the IP subnet number.

To add an IP subnet

1.	Expand the Browser node and right-click Subnets | New | Subnet.

2.	Click Next.

3.	Enter a name and description for the IP subnet, then click Next.

4.	Enter an IP address and subnet mask.

The subnet mask allows Reporter to determine how many possible IP addresses are available within an IP subnet. The subnet mask is a 32-bit number that distinguishes the network and computer section of an IP address and determines if the host is local or remote.

For example, the subnet mask may be 255.255.255.0 and the IP Subnet 10.0.0.0. This means that valid IP addresses for that subnet are 10.0.0.1 to 10.0.0.254. Only 254 computers can be connected to that subnet at one time.

5.	Click Next.

6.	Click Add to enter a range of IP addresses to exclude from this IP subnet, then click OK.

Excluding ranges allows you to block out a portion of the IP subnet range. For example, if a range (10.0.0.20—10.0.0.30) is reserved for dial-up connections, you might want to exclude this block, as any reporting, collecting, or querying to these computers might be slow.

7.	Click Next.

8.	Click Finish.

Any IP subnets and computers in that subnet are displayed under the IP Subnet node.