By Rick Bylina, Senior Product Marketing Manager at Infoblox
If you’re old enough you remember the maps you could buy at the gas station. To this day I still can’t fold one back up again. The king of those maps was from AAA, called a Trip Tik. As a kid in the back seat watching mom navigate was cool, she was a super star because of that Trip Tik. Fast forward to Google Maps and you can see where converged data has taken the family road trip.
Google Maps are a great metaphor for what Infoblox has done for IPAM and DDI overall. With Trip Tik we knew a lot about the route but didn’t know exactly what was on the route in terms of food, entertainment, and lodging. Although AAA did include its affiliate hotels as a bonus (we always stopped at one with a pool). And heaven forbid a construction project close an exit designated on your Trip Tik, there was no fallback position besides the gas station map and some clever navigation by mom. Today with Google Maps we have all our information together on one map, we can find the food we want, the entertainment we crave and if we encounter a closed exit we can easily “recalculate route”. The world is a better place to travel in when you have such a rich convergence of data that guides your decisions with premium quality data.
So what the heck does Google Maps have to do with managing the core network services of DDI? Plenty! Infoblox Network Insight has taken the notion of converging data to better support decisions in navigating the management and control of your network. Sure some folks discover layer 2 and layer 3 device data and end host data. Some even go a step further to merge that data with DDI information but Network Insight has taken the notion of converged data for better decision making a step beyond the rest. Network Insight’s infrastructure data is not only integrated in real time with DNS, DHCP, and IPAM data but the information itself is part of the workflows that are commonly done with a DDI system.
Think about an uber-Google Map that knows your tire is going flat and shows the 3 nearest service stations that have your car’s tires in their inventory. It’s kind of like that! By not only adding the information to the IPAM database Network Insight also makes it actionable within the workflows. This integration allows network administrators to go from IPAM to devices and back to perform typical closed loop processes. And there are no requirements as to where to start – start with a device, seamlessly move to DHCP ranges, perform the required modifications, and finalize the changes in DNS. The combination of workflows is limitless and provides a level of flexibility that makes Infoblox Network Insight a valuable tool in any enterprise network regardless of the size or complexity. Infoblox enterprise grade DDI is greatly enhanced by the unprecedented visibility provided by Network Insight. The integration of network infrastructure device data including visibility into your virtual environments raises the bar in providing network teams greater agility, reduced risk, and real cost savings. Check it out for yourself at http://www.Infoblox.com/NetworkInsight.