Patent ID: 8161136

Claim:
A method for monitoring and optimizing performance and availability of a Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) service provided by one or a plurality of DHCP servers in an Internet Protocol (IP) network comprising one or a plurality of IP subnetworks, said method comprising in a DHCP server the steps of: defining, by a processor, one or a plurality of groups of subnetworks, each group of subnetworks comprising one or a plurality of subnetworks; retrieving information related to resources, in particular IP addresses, allocated within said DHCP server to each group of subnetworks; and transferring said information to a DHCP service monitoring system, said DHCP service monitoring system comprising means for retrieving said information from the one or the plurality of DHCP servers and means for aggregating said information for each group of subnetworks, wherein the performance and availability of the DHCP service is monitored and optimized based on information aggregated for each group of subnetworks, wherein the means for aggregating said information for each group of subnetworks comprises determining a global utilization for each group of subnetworks, the global utilization being equal to a total number of IP addresses presently allocated to a group of subnetworks on all DHCP servers, divided by a total number of IP addresses that can be potentially allocated to said group of subnetworks on all DHCP servers, and wherein the monitoring and optimizing of the performance and availability of the DHCP service, comprises sending an action if the global utilization for said group of subnetworks reaches a predetermined threshold.