Patent ID: 8321567

Claim:
A method for managing network addresses on a data communications network, comprising: receiving network Internet Protocol (IP) address usage data from one or more network edge devices; determining whether one or more of a plurality of local network address pools corresponding to the network edge devices should be reallocated based upon at least the requested network address usage data, wherein the one or more of a plurality of local network address pools includes a high watermark that indicates a measurement of a maximum number of network addresses used by the corresponding network edge device during a predetermined time period, wherein said determining further comprises ascertaining whether the high watermark of a local network address pool exceeds a high watermark limit, and wherein the determining is associated with polling network edge devices for the IP address usage data and receiving IP address usage alerts from the network edge devices, and wherein particular network addresses are reclaimed when the high watermark is less than the high watermark limit and a low watermark is greater than a low watermark limit; reallocating one or more of a plurality of local network address pools based upon at least said requested network address usage data; updating one or more local network address pool databases based upon said reallocating; wherein the low watermark and the high watermark are each expressed as a percentage of allocated network addresses; wherein the network operates according to a simple network management protocol (SNMP); and wherein the low watermark and the high watermark are each stored in an expression management information base (MIB).