Infoblox announce NIOS 6.3

NIOS 6.3 has been released and included the following enhancements:

Task Automation
Infoblox supports a few new features that automate the management of core network services (DNS, DHCP, and IPAM). You can now select the Tasks Dashboard or Status Dashboard as your home page when you log in to Grid Manager. The Tasks Dashboard provides easy access to commonly performed IPAM tasks, such as adding networks and host records. Tasks are grouped by task packs. Each task in a task pack opens a workflow dialog in which you can create task-related objects without navigating through other tabs and editors in Grid Manager. You can now add networks, host records, fixed addresses as well as the CNAME record, TXT record, and MX record through the Tasks Dashboard.

Dashboard Templates and Tasks Dashboard Only Restriction
As part of the Task Automation features, superusers can now specify the tasks an admin group can perform from the Tasks Dashboard by creating a dashboard template and assigning it to the admin group. When you create a dashboard template, you define the tasks users in an admin group can perform and specify whether the users can configure their own dashboards when they log in to Grid Manager. When you assign a dashboard template to an admin group, all users in this group can see and perform only the tasks you define in the template, provided that the users also have the correct permissions to the objects related to the tasks.

Superusers can also restrict limited-access users to access only the Tasks Dashboard when they log in to Grid Manager. These users cannot manage other core network services through Grid Manager. They can only see the Tasks Dashboard tab and access only the tasks defined in the dashboard template, if applicable. This feature is useful when you want to define different levels of admin users and restrict them to specific tasks based on their organizational functions.

TAE (Trinzic Automation Engine) Support
You can now leverage NetMRI appliances to perform automated network tasks, through the Automation task pack in the Tasks Dashboard. The task pack provides the following tasks:

• Port Activation: Enables users to set interfaces on switches and routers to administratively Up or administratively Down.
• VLAN Reassignment: Enables users to reassign VLANS to different switch interfaces from any device and device group.
• Network Provisioning: Enables users to provision IPv4 or IPv4/IPv6 networks with netmask, gateway router IP offset values, extensible attributes for network identification, and support for NIOS network views. Simple and Complex provisioning models are provided. IPv6 configuration supports parent networks. Interface hostnames are also supported.
• Rogue DHCP Server: This task is triggered by an automated DHCP server discovery service within the automation engine. The system will detect any DHCP services that are not managed by Infoblox or contained in an approved exceptions list, and will raise an event in the Task Viewer. Automated remediation and notification can be configured.
• Bare Metal Provisioning: This task is triggered by the network infrastructure discovery service within the Trinzic Automation Engine. Provisioning templates and parameters and configured to allow specific network configuration for new network infrastructure devices.

Next Available Networks
When you add networks, you can now obtain the next available IPv4 or IPv6 network from a specific network container. The next available network address is the first unused network address in the network container to which you have administrative permissions. This feature automates the allocation of networks so you can manage your network space more efficiently.

Reserved Ranges
When you define an address range, you can now reserve the IP addresses in the range for static hosts, provided that you do not assign a member or failover association to it. The addresses in a reserved range cannot be served as dynamic addresses. You can use this feature to organize network devices. For example, you can create a reserved range called “Printer Range” to reserve static IP addresses for printers in your network. When you allocate IP addresses for printers, you can have the appliance search for the next available IP address within “Printer Range,” and then allocate the address to a new printer.

Trinzic Reporting
Infoblox provides tools that support reporting of core network services in an Infoblox Grid. You can now add any of the Trinzic Reporting platforms as a member to the Grid and configure it as a dedicated reporting appliance. The reporting appliance collects data from Infoblox members, stores the data in the database, and generates reports that provide statistical data about IPAM, DNS, DHCP and system activities and performance. Infoblox provides a collection of predefined reports and searches. You can also create custom report dashboards and searches based on your organization‟s needs.

The new Trinzic Reporting platforms are the Trinzic Reporting 1400, 4000, and 2000 appliances, and the Trinzic Reporting VM-800 appliance (virtual appliance). For information about these appliances, refer to their respective installation guides.

Query Redirection License
You can install a Query Redirection license on a recursive DNS member to control its response to queries for A records of non-existent domain names and other domain names that you specify. After the license is installed, Grid Manager displays the NXDOMAIN Rulesets tab where you can create rules that specify how a DNS member responds to queries for A records for certain domain names and non-existent domain names. Each rule contains a domain name specification and the action of the DNS member when the domain name in the query matches that in the rule. After you create the rules, you then enable the NXDOMAIN redirection feature and list the IP addresses that are included in the synthesized responses.

IPv6 Network Map
Just like the IPv4 Net Map, the IPv6 Net Map provides a high-level view of the network address space. You can use the IPv6 Net Map to design and plan your network infrastructure, and to configure and manage individual networks.

IPv6 Discovery
The appliance now supports the import of IPv6 discovery information from a NetMRI appliance. Users can then convert those discovered objects into managed IPAM data.

DHCP Hardware Operator
You can define the Hardware Operator option and add it as a match rule to an option filter. This option enables the appliance to match the hardware type and MAC address of the DHCP client, which it derives from the htype (hardware type), hlen (hardware length) and chaddr (client hardware address) fields of the client‟s DHCP Discover and Renew packets.

Scheduling Full Upgrades
You can now schedule a full upgrade, which allows for member-to-master data replication, from NIOS 5.1r5-3, 5.1r5-4, 5.1r5-5, 5.1r5-6 to NIOS 6.3.0. A full upgrade occurs when there are database schema changes between the existing and upgrade software versions. Scheduling an upgrade for a grid can minimize network and operational outages, especially when you have grid members that are in different time zones. Depending on the configuration of your grid and the software version that is currently running in the grid, you can schedule your upgrades for different members or upgrade groups over a period of nine days.

SafeNet HSM
You can now integrate SafeNet Hardware Security Modules (HSMs) for secure private key storage and generation, and zone-signing off-loading. When using a network-attached HSM, you can provide tight physical access control, allowing only selected security personnel to physically access the HSM that stores the DNSSEC keys. When you enable this feature, the HSM performs DNSSEC zone signing, key generation, and key safe keeping.

Security Enhancements
This release contains the following security enhancements: DNS TSIG keys now support the SHA256 algorithm in addition to MD5. It is now possible to specify password complexity and password expiration policies.

SNMP Enhancements
A number of new traps have been added as well as new statistical information to poll for. You are now able to configure thresholds for member information such as CPU, memory and LAN interface. The DHCP thresholding capability has been enhanced to now have a high-water trigger/reset as well as a low-water trigger/reset. In addition, the administrator can now select which traps to enable for forwarding to a SNMP trap receiver and/or email address. Infoblox recommends that you install the latest MIBs on your system.

Member DNS/DHCP Permissions
You can now separate DNS and DHCP administration on different grid members by applying specific DNS and DHCP permissions to admin groups and roles. For example, you can create an admin group or role that can only create, modify, and delete DHCP ranges in a specific network on a specific member in the Grid. This admin group or role is restricted to the specified tasks on the selected Grid member. It cannot perform other DNS or DHCP tasks on this member, and it cannot perform the specified tasks on other grid members. You can also control whether admins can modify member DNS and DHCP properties.

LAN2 Failover in HA
This NIOS release supports NIC redundancy between LAN1 and LAN2 for HA configurations.

Grid/System Manager and API Enhancements
This release introduces a number of enhancements to Grid/System Manager and the API.

Grid/System Manager: You can now scroll through the list of global smart folders. In earlier releases, NIOS displayed the first 20 folders and you could not scroll through the list. When you delete a delegation that is a parent zone, you now have the option to delete the parent zone only or to delete its subzones as well. The Type filter in the Zones panel now allows users to select the 'does not equal' operator. The "Server Address" column was added to the "DNS Updates to External Zones" section of the Configure DDNS wizard.
API: There is an API call to retrieve all CNAMEs based on the canonical name.