To use the IP management domain policy-based or source routing capability, you must establish separate IP management domains. An IP management domain is a set of IP networks that do not contain overlapping addresses.

The IP addresses within an IP management domain are unique, except for cases in which a Hot Standby Routing Protocol (HSRP) or a Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol (VRRP) redundancy group is employed, where two or more routers may share the same virtual IP address as long as only one router actually uses the address at any one time.

Consider two customers, A and B, that both use the private IP network number 10.0.0.0/8 (subnet 255.0.0.0). In this case, Customer A is one management domain, Domain A, and Customer B is a second management domain, Domain B. The combination of A and B cannot be a management domain because they both use the 10.0.0.0/8 network number. As the administrator of the IP Manager, you map each customer network to a different management domain when configuring the IP Manager.

Topology and trap information in Domain A and Domain B is kept isolated by running separate IP Manager instances on the same host system. Each IP Manager monitors the information for its domain.