Integrated IP Address Management Solution

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Infoblox NIOS™ Virtual Appliances Software on Riverbed Steelhead AppliancesBranch Office Consolidation of Core Network Services

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Overview

Many organizations today with large distributed networks are taking advantage of two significant trends: data center consolidation and server virtualization. Network consolidation and server virtualization improve the performance and security of applications for branch office users while at the same time reducing costs. By removing servers and applications from branch offices and consolidating infrastructure in data centers, network administrators are able to achieve a number of business benefits that include lower capital equipment cost, lower support and management cost and better auditing, control, security, and regulatory compliance.

Server virtualization technology allows multiple applications, network services, and operating systems to share the system resources of a common hardware platform. This allows for more efficient use of CPU, power, space, and other resources. This hardware can be in the form of a general-purpose server or a more specialized device such as a branch office router, WAN optimization controller, or ‘branch office box’ running a virtualized software environment. Such an environment can run software for a number of tasks and allow for network administrators to reduce the number of hardware platforms that they need to purchase and support.

Infoblox and Riverbed are supporting further branch office server consolidation by combining Infoblox core network services with Riverbed wide-area data services on Riverbed Steelhead appliances.

BRANch OffIce USeRS ReqUIRe RelIABle cORe NetwORk SeRVIceS

Core network services including—DNS, DHCP, FTP, HTTP, and NTP—provide critical name resolution, address assignment, authentication, file delivery, and other network functions that are essential for all network applications,—including web access, e-mail, VoIP, secure wireless access, and others. All network users require nonstop availability and low latency for these services in order to get on the network and perform their daily work.

Many organizations deploy core network services as an ad-hoc collection of software applications on general—purpose servers and operating systems. Distributing the delivery of core network services to branch offices using the software-on-servers approach provides better performance and availability versus providing services from a central data center, but incurs the costs and vulnerabilities associated with deploying remote servers. Centralizing the delivery of core network services avoids the problems of remote server deployment and management but leads to potential performance and availability problems for branch office users.

Appliance delivery of core network services has become an industry recommended best practice for reliability, scalability, manageability, security, and performance. The Infoblox appliance solution is based on Infoblox NIOS™ software, a security-hardened system designed specifically for automated delivery and management of core network services.

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Infoblox NIOS™ Virtual Appliance Software on Riverbed Steelhead Appliances

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cORe NetwORk SeRVIceS BeSt PRActIceS

Branch server consolidation initiatives provide an excellent opportunity to evaluate the best practices for delivering core network services to branch offices. The Infoblox appliance solution makes it practical and cost effective to deploy core network services locally at regional and branch offices, with high security and central management. This provides the best of both worlds for users and network administrators. The joint Infoblox—Riverbed solution goes a step further, providing appliance deployment of core network services together with WAN optimization services in a single hardware platform, further lowering costs.

Infoblox NIOS Virtual Appliance is a full featured software instance of the Infoblox core network services product that can be deployed on Riverbed Steelhead appliances running the Riverbed RiOS™ Services Platform (RSP) module in branch offices. The NIOS Virtual Appliance includes a full suite of core network services including DNS, DHCP, IPAM, FTP, HTTP, and NTP. This combined solution allows network administrators to architect a serverless branch office and at the same time deliver reliable local services to end users. Distributed organizations obtain the cost benefits of consolidation and the simplicity of centrally managed Infoblox core network services.

ceNtRAl MANAgeMeNt, AUtOMAtION, ANd gRId cONNectIVIty fOR ANy SIze OffIce

Infoblox grid technology,—available on all Infoblox appliances and included in NIOS Virtual Appliance software,—turns a collection of individual appliances into a unified system for delivering core network services throughout a distributed organization. Infoblox grid technology automates and simplifies a wide range of functions, including appliance deployment, platform management, software upgrades, system configuration, and data management. Based on patented distributed database technology, Infoblox grids ensure data integrity and nonstop service availability, with multiple levels of high-availability, failover, and disaster recovery. Infoblox grid technology also supports intelligent data replication to minimize the use of bandwidth and to enable “right-sized” appliances to be deployed at each location.

The joint Infoblox—Riverbed solution supports hybrid environments that include a mix of physical Infoblox appliances and virtual appliances running on Steelhead platforms depending on branch office requirements. Each instance of NIOS Virtual Appliance software running on a Steelhead appliance appears to the grid as any other grid member, with all of the benefits of distributed services and centralized management. This includes centralized backup and restoration of user data, DHCP failover capabilities, one-touch software upgrades, DNS without latency, and many other benefits of the Infoblox solution.

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A key benefit of the Infoblox solution includes fault tolerance and local survivability for DHCP services. Each member of the grid—whether a dedicated hardware appliance or a NIOS Virtual Appliance running on Steelhead appliances—can provide local DHCP services and can be configured to support DHCP Failover with a peer appliance or virtual NIOS instance at another location. In the event of a WAN outage, the local NIOS instance is available to provide new DHCP leases to local machines joining the network. In a alternate scenario, if the local NIOS member is unavailable, DHCP services can be provided over the WAN from the DHCP Failover peer. Grid members can be replaced or upgraded at any time with a couple of clicks on the central management console which significantly reduces the management burden associated with the delivery of core network services at the branch.

Figure 1: Example of Infoblox and Steelhead appliances deployedin a multi-campus, multi-branch office environment.

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Infoblox NIOS™ Virtual Appliance Software on Riverbed Steelhead Appliances

© 2010 Infoblox Inc. All rights reserved. infoblox-whitepaper-nios-appliance-virtualization-for-server-consolidation-aug-1-2010

Summary

The powerful combination of Infoblox and Riverbed ‘best-of-breed’ solutions provides significant operational benefits and cost savings for organizations with large distributed network environments, including:

• Infrastructure consolidation: Network administrators can deliver local core network services with centralized management while reducing server footprint at regional and branch offices.

• Purpose—built solution: Infoblox NIOS and Riverbed Steelhead appliances are purpose-built solutions that deliver high performance and secure services with minimal footprint.

• centralized, grid management: Centralized management of all core network services in the organization reduces overhead and increases performance and reliability.

• lower costs: Removing generic servers and consolidating delivery of DNS, DHCP, and other core network services on the Steelhead appliance reduces capital and administrative costs.

• local survivability: Local delivery of DHCP and DNS services guarantee service availability during WAN outages or interruptions in data center services. In addition, DHCP failover and other features of the Infoblox grid provide additional layers of reliability.

• Application performance: Providing DNS services at remote offices (rather than at the data center) eliminates WAN latencies. Since nearly all applications—including Internet and intranet access, e-mail, VoIP and others increasingly rely on DNS. Application performance can be significantly affected if there are excess delays in DNS lookups.

The joint Infoblox—Riverbed solution makes the dream of a branch office box a reality.

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Figure 2: A topology highliting DHCP failover across the LAN.

Integrated IP Address Management Solution

For More Information:

+1.408.625.4200

+1.866.463.6256

(toll-free, U.S. and Canada)

info@infoblox.com

www.infoblox.com

© 2010 Infoblox Inc. All rights reserved. infoblox-whitepaper-nios-appliance-virtualization-for-server-consolidation-aug-1-2010