The FreeBSD Corporate Networker's GuideDHCP Saves IP NumbersA reviewer took exception to my statements in the book that Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) doesn't save IP numbers, saying that several studies have shown 50% reduction in IP number usage on large nets. While I explain my assertion in the book already, I decided to address this issue one last time. Yes, DHCP does save IP numbers if your IP address assignment mechanism is already beyond hope. It's interesting to note that the reviewer in question was from an academic network--a network, incidentally, that is numbered by routable IP numbers, not private numbers. Unlike normal corporate or for-profit organizational networks, academic networks have a history of letting things slide. This is due to a simple reason: The very basis for an academic network is to benefit the end user plugged into it. In contrast, corporate networks are there to benefit the corporation. In a normal corporate net, if you want a resource from the net, you have absolutely no right whatsover to have it. You must justify to your boss, the network admin, and a few other people why you should have it. This resource includes IP numbers, and these can be taken away anytime you can no longer justify needing them. Since all corporate resources cost somebody money, there's always someone looking over your shoulder wondering how they can pry away for their own use whatever resources that you aren't using. In a normal academic net, the network admin has absolutely no right to deny anyone who is a member of the academic institution access to any resource. Since academic institutions exist for learning, it's impossible to teach when information is restricted. So, naturally the academic network admin cannot arbitrarily walk down to a department that he knows is wasting IP numbers and just take half of them away, if he doesen't want a discrimination lawsuit rammed down his throat, unless he does it to everyone on campus. A corporate network admin, by contrast, can do this with impunity. Thus, in corporate nets, each network admin can basically manage his or her net to his satisfaction and can easily take questionable IP numbers out of service. If this causes someone problems later on, well, in a corporate environment if someone isn't using something (pens, stapler, personnel, budget), it gets taken away rapidly. That is the way of the corporate world.
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