Well, I'm back from a four-day weekend to Cape Cod, so you'll have to excuse me for not blogging for a few days. I'm still sifting through tons of email and voice messages, so it may take me awhile to get back into my blogging groove. In the meantime, I came across this interesting bit of news in my Inbox...

Nominum, a provider of IP address infrastructure solutions, will announce that it has joined the Juniper Networks J-Partner OSS & Network Management Alliance. Together, Nominum and Juniper will launch a joint development of a high-performance network infrastructure with highly available, configurable and scalable DHCP services for broadband internet applications such as VoIP and mobile connectivity.

Hmmm... Scalable DHCP for VoIP? I don't usually think about DHCP in the same breath as VoIP. DHCP is such an integral part of most networks it's probably one of those things that is easily overlooked. DHCP just plain works, so you don't think about it.

Typically, in most LAN environments you have one DHCP server otherwise you have a conflict - trust me I know - I've gotten products in TMC Labs that had DHCP turned on by default causing network issues in the labs. Of course, with only one DHCP server on your LAN you are vulnerable to downtime if the DHCP server fails. I believe this is what this deal between Nominum and Juniper Networks addresses. If I had more time I'd investigate further.

According to the email I received, "The combination of solutions from both companies will meet carrier-grade demands for network availability and performance and enable service providers to efficiently and reliably support large numbers of subscribers with differentiated services, and will offer new capabilities to DHCP services."