Manage Change, Eliminate Disruptions
Network infrastructure is like traditional phone service—people expect it to work flawlessly all the time, and they complain immediately when it doesn’t. Successful organizations insist on total availability of critical applications and business services, which in turn rely on the network infrastructure. If the network is suddenly not available, instant chaos is the result.
While IT teams struggle with variety of causes for network availability problems, the greatest of them all is usually change. The biggest risk to network availability comes from focusing on major potential issues (such as virus attacks, power disruptions or environmental problems) while pushing day-to-day management aside. If your greatest performance problem is related to change, you are leaving yourself wide open to network availability issues. Moreover, if your organization manages the network manually, other aspects like IP address management, DNS and DHCP can also cause you major problems. Infoblox can manage change for you, and can eliminate change-caused network disruptions.
To maintain uninterrupted network availability, organizations turn to Infoblox for help. Today over 5,000 customers use Infoblox solutions to ensure maximum network uptime, meet internal compliance, manage changes, and keep the business running, while simultaneously making constant improvements to their dynamic infrastructure.
Challenges
Network availability challenges
Since many variables can cause network availability issues, the biggest challenge for IT is deciding where to focus their limited resources. While disaster recovery and business continuity plans are critical, relatively minor issues that grow into major problems cause many availability issues. Instead of focusing on what they cannot control, the most successful organizations focus on what they can control.
The network infrastructure is one area where IT has the most control, but often lacks the tools, automation and management to minimize the exposure to network availability issues. While resources are spent on other initiatives, day-to-day network performance management is often left to traditional approaches: homemade scripts, freeware and a lot of manual effort. This approach tends to lead to a lot of reactive troubleshooting and wasted time and resources. Common misconceptions include:
- General DNS/DHCP servers are fine - Standard Unix and Microsoft servers may be inexpensive to deploy, but usability is limited and failure risk can be high
- Network changes are quick and easy - The amount of time for multiple changes quickly adds up and every touch to a device adds potential human error
- IP address management can be done manually - A spreadsheet is often out of date, riddled with mistakes and wastes time
- Fear of job replacement - The benefit of automation is reducing time and effort for manual, repetitive tasks so you can focus on more important issues
- I don’t trust automation - The key to successful automation is deploy what you need and want – eliminate the manual time and effort to manage the infrastructure or prove compliance
- Compliance is the enemy - Standards and compliance actually help build a consistent network and will save resources over time
Infoblox Solutions
Improving network availability with Infoblox
Infoblox helps organizations take control and automate the network infrastructure, so they can improve overall network availability. Even for the most complex networks, Infoblox ensures resilient, agile and predictable network performance mangement services. Increasing efficiency with network automation, combined with the control and knowledge of network change and behavior, greatly improves overall service availability and network uptime.
With high-availability, resilient appliances, Infoblox helps organizations meet network requirements for their ever-changing needs. The single integrated interface and hardened appliances with patented high-availability Grid™ technology reduce the risk for outages normally associated with Microsoft or Unix server platforms. The tracking and auditing for DNS, DHCP, IP address and network changes help meet compliance requirements and help identify potential issues faster and easier than the traditional reactive troubleshooting approach.
Key Infoblox capabilities
- Hardened appliances - The purpose-built, hardened appliances are designed for non-stop operation in high-performance networks with high-availability capabilities
- Network change automation - Automate multiple changes with one job, thereby reducing time requirements
- IP address management - Automated IP address management ensures the most up-to-date and complete view of IP addresses
- Proactive configuration management - Proactively search for and find device misconfigurations or poor settings lurking in the network, and provide proactive notification
- Auto-remediation and job scheduling - When there is a problem in the network, reduce the time for remediation with built-in jobs and automation to fix the problem
- Maintain compliance - Leverage embedded expertise and best standards to proactively monitor policies for a standard, consistent network
- Staff efficiency - Enable your staff to focus on more critical aspects and worker smarter, not harder
Demos & Resources
See the power of network automation and control in action
Since every network environment is unique, the best way to see the power of the Infoblox solutions is to request a one-on-one, interactive demo. Our experts will discuss your current requirements and future needs, and tailor the presentation to cover the aspects most critical to you.
Additional resources
To learn more about how Infoblox can help you control and automate DNS, DHCP, IP address management and network configuration, change and compliance management, visit these additional resources:
- Overviews: Summaries of Infoblox and our solutions
- Data Sheets: In-depth descriptions of the Infoblox solutions, product lines, services and maintenance
- Case Studies: Real-world success stories from Infoblox customers
- White Papers: Business-level overviews and best practices in network services and network infrastructure management
- Solution/Tech Notes: Detailed technical discussions and instructions on network integration and specific applications
Virtual Appliance Trial Download - Includes DNS, DHCP, and IPAM
Free Trinzic NetMRI Trial - Download now and automate network change and configuration!
IPAM Freeware - Download today and replace your spreadsheet!
Infoblox is hiring!