dressing is a protocol that specifies the format of addresses on the Internet. Organizations use this numbering scheme for addressing specific devices on their LANs. The format is a series of numbers: XXX.XXX.XXX.XX indicate the part of the LAN and the address of each device. When messages are addressed to external locations, software within the LAN translates the private IP address to a public IP address assigned to them by their carrier. Private IP addresses are required because the amount of public IP addresses is limited and because it would be almost impossible for the entire world to coordinate the details of assignment of public IP addresses to individual components of local area networks. Keeping Up with Changes-An Ongoing Challenge wwwTechnicalPDE.com The biggest challenge of operating monitoring software is keeping up with changes. As departments grow or shrink or change locations, monitoring software needs to be aware of the changes and update their software. Much of this is done automatically using discovery. Discovery is a feature of monitoring software that "discovers" new and changed devices by tracking their IP addresses. However, it is not 100 percent accurate. Reports and Alerts-Pings: "Are You There?" Monitoring software determines if equipment is up by sending continuous pings to all of the equipment in the network. Ping software consists of small software programs that expect a response to each of their messages. It's analogous to sending a message that says "are you there?" If the equipment sends a response to the ping, the monitoring software assumes that the gear is operational and that the network is operational. Because ping responses are only 80 percent accurate, IP staff must investigate further if a response is not received from a ping. Almost all computers have ping software. Telephone companies' and computer companies' technicians commonly ping the equipment at customers' locations as a first step in determining if there is a problem in their remote equipment or, in the case of tele