SOLUTION NOTE
Automated Network Control for
Unifying DNS Management and Extending the Infoblox
Grid
TMto the F5 Global Traffic Manager
Challenges
There is an ever-widening gap between network devices and relationships and the human capital that it takes to manage the network. In particular, managing IP addresses and DNS infrastructure is a complex task.
In terms of availability, enterprises must ensure that they can maintain high levels of service even if a datacenter is down or even overloaded. To achieve this goal, network administrators had to set up multiple F5® BIG-IP® Global Traffic Manager™ (GTM) appliances separately from each other and from the overall DNS infrastructure. This process not only wasted a precious resource – time of the Network Administrator – but also compromised the overall quality of network services by introducing human error into the process. Further, not having an overall view of the entire network infrastructure made network design and trou-bleshooting difficult.
Solution – Direct your Traffic with F5 and Infoblox
Two thought and market leaders combine to create the ultimate solution for global load balancing and DNS management. The joint F5-Infoblox solution is composed of:
• F5 BIG-IP Global Traffic Manager (GTM) • Trinzic DDI product option(s) that include a minimum of 1 Grid Master • Infoblox Load Balancer Manager (LBM) Key Differentiators • Application Layer Availability: Minimizes downtime and improves the user experience by determining health at the application layer for every user. • Management Automation:
Provides automated
management of load balancers across a global network – called the Infoblox GridTM.
• Visualization: Delivers robust visualization across the entire network, including relationships and status.
Key Benefits
• Protects End User Experience: By guarding against both site outages and overloads, the solution protects the overall experience of your end users and customers.
• Maximizes Return on Investment: Leverages best of breed solution for DNS management that maximizes customers’ investments in technology and training. • Masters Network Complexity:
Enables even the most complex DNS infrastructure to be managed efficiently and effectively via visualization on a single pane of glass.
Infoblox Load Balancer Manager
F5 BIG-IP Global Traffic Manager F5 BIG-IP
Global Traffic Manager
F5 BIG-IP Global Traffic Manager
SOLUTION NOTE
Automated Network Control for
F5 Big-IP Global Traffic Manager Features
BIG-IP Global Traffic Manager (GTM) is a global DNS solution, providing name services at the very edge of the service delivery and access networks. By employing geographic location services, BIG-IP GTM can direct users to the best service deliv-ery data center based on their physical location.
Disaster Recovery
When a datacenter is overloaded, unreachable due to network conditions, or completely down, the solution will automatically and transparently direct end users to an alternate datacenter. End users will not be aware of the switch, whether it is to another datacenter on another city or even another continent.
Workload Balancing
When End Users attempt to reach a website or datacenter, they will be automati-cally routed to the most efficient data center based on location, workload, and other factors.
About Infoblox
Infoblox (NYSE:BLOX) delivers Automated Network Control solutions, the fundamental technology that connects end users, devices and networks. Infoblox helps take the burden of complex network control out of human hands, reduce costs, and increase accuracy and uptime.
Infoblox Trinzic DDI is the world’s leading appliance-based, integrated DNS, DHCP and IP address management product. Trinzic DDI employs state-of-the-art IP address management and automated error-checking technologies, seamlessly integrated with Microsoft DNS/DHCP servers. It supports the Infoblox Grid™ architecture, which enables the most advanced, highly avail-able, fault tolerant and scalable DDI solution in the world. With Trinzic DDI you can leverage your existing investments in Microsoft, while simultaneously incorporating collaborative IP address management and ensuring 99.999% network services uptime.
Infoblox Load Balancer Manager (LBM) is a product in the Trinzic DDI family. LBM transforms a network of standalone Global Load Balancers into a grid of centrally-managed appliances. With LBM, for the first time enterprises can manage all aspects of their DNS infrastructure centrally from a single pane of glass using automated tools that master the complexity of the network, make critical resource such as network administrators more efficient, and adapt to the organization’s structure and policies flexibly.
SOLUTION NOTE
Automated Network Control for
Application Management
Applications can be distributed across multiple web servers, application servers, and database servers that work together. The solution automatically tracks and manages interdependencies to provide high availability, persistence, and mainte-nance for these applications.
Infoblox Load Balancer Manager Features
Rapid and Flexible Implementation
The product enables rapid setup whether into an existing load balancer environ-ment or into a new installation. The product supports load balancers in delegated zones and in screened authoritative zones simultaneously in both DNS security and scalability environments.
Full Lifecycle Management of IP Addresses
Since LBM is part of the Trinzic DDI product family, the combination manages IP addresses throughout their entire life cycle – from discovery to assignment to de-assignment as needed. Automation capabilities ensure that resources used by load balancers such as Servers or Virtual IP addresses can be managed effectively and assigned automatically in near real-time.
SOLUTION NOTE
Automated Network Control for
“Single Pane of Glass” Visualization and Management
LBM takes DNS management to a new level by presenting the entire worldwide grid of F5 Global Traffic Managers, their associated URLs, resource pools, and servers in an intuitive view. Drilldown capabilities enable the visualization of the relationships among load balancer resources such as load balanced domain names, resource pools, and servers in those pools. The view also provides a near real-time display of the Grid of traffic managers overall health in terms of each appliance and object being enabled or disabled and connected or disconnected.
Best Practices Automation
LBM automates all aspects of management – from discovery through setup to revisions: • Discovery of Global Traffic Manager settings such as Protocol, DNS Profile,
Prober Pool, load balanced domain names, datacenters, listeners, pools, and resources in each pool (typically Servers and Virtual IP addresses).
• Synchronization of settings to all load balancers in the Grid • Testing of connections to load balancers via a simple button click.
• Use of wizards that leverage Infoblox’s “best practices” for faster and more accurate object creation and update
Smart Folders and Extensible Attributes for Traffic Management Objects
LBM includes features that help master the complexity of networks that serve even global conglomerates. An Infoblox exclusive, Smart Folders, enables network elements to be mapped by city (e.g. Tokyo Hub) or by IT structure (e.g. Finance Datacenter) for greater ease of reference and use in troubleshooting. Searchable comments and extensible attributes for each object enable network administrators to log specific status and comments of use in management and debugging.
SOLUTION NOTE
Automated Network Control for
Network Administrator Productivity Features
The product maximizes the impact of your most precious resource – Network Administrators. It enables rapid identification of network problems and minimizes tedious labor in managing load balancers. For example, device wizards enable rapid selection of the appropriate load balancer and setup of the right resource centrally rather than have to log on to each load balancer individually.
Matches Organizational Structure with Security Level
LBM matches the administrator’s security level to organizational level or work need by granting access to F5 objects based on group or role permissions. With LBM, you can delegate specific tasks to department staff without requiring the staff to become load balancer experts. LBM adapts to your organization rather than make your organization adapt to the product.
Leverages Infoblox Security Framework Across Load Balancers
By leveraging Infoblox-generated groups and roles into load balancer permissions, security maintenance is reduced and quality is increased. A subset of functionality:
• Integrates with multiple administrator authentication sources (e.g. Active Directory, RADIUS, TACACS+, and Common Access Card approaches) for single sign-on
• Records all changes made to global load balancer objects for audit / compliance
• Checks load balancer security certificate for secure iControl communications
Infoblox Product Warranty and Services
Supported Environment
• Infoblox GridTM software
package
• NIOS 6.5 or greater • Infoblox Appliance –
Physical or Virtual – acting as Grid Master • Infoblox Appliance – Physical or Virtual – acting as Sync Member (best practice configuration) • F5 Global Traffic Manager
(GTM) appliances – physical or virtual running TMOS 10.2.x or 11.x.
