Granite goes beyond the physical

Granite Systems took its Xpercom inventory management solution a step closer to its vision of a comprehensive service resource management system by acquiring GuideComm Systems' IP address management application, IPMgr.

IPMgr allows service providers to assign, allocate and manage IP addresses across their networks (see figure). The application also performs subnet masking, network address translation and other address management functions.

Granite has been picking up clients such as Sphera Optical Networks and Network Plus that require more IP-specific solutions, which the company lacked.

"We have been mostly concerned with inventorying physical things made of metal, plastic and silicon. This takes us into inventorying information," said Mark Mortensen, vice president of marketing for Granite. "IP addresses are, in fact, a very valuable resource, and you have to husband that resource just as carefully or more carefully than the hardware."

GuideComm's core business is consulting and system integration, not software development. In its consulting role, however, GuideComm finds itself developing niche applications to round out commercially available solutions.

"Commercial products provide a great foundation but don't necessarily do everything a client needs," said Alan Gilbert, director of marketing for GuideComm. "In some cases, there is a void that is wider, and so we will do small software development using our development methodology, and that's how IPMgr came about."

IPMgr is not the first IP address management system on the market. "We found with respect to IP management that there were some products already on the market, but they were too wide or too deep or too expensive or perhaps did not focus specifically on a service provider's needs," said Larry Reback, president and CEO of GuideComm.

Granite was looking for something small enough to easily integrate with its inventory management system. "We believe it's a new category of OSS that is just as valid as a fault management system or an order management system," Mortensen said.