Infoblox is pleased to announce the general availability of NIOS 9.0.6, the latest advancement of our flagship Network Identity Operating System (NIOS). Building on more than two decades of reliable, secure and market-leading network solutions, this release reimagines NIOS software maintenance to give customers more visibility and control during upgrades and greater peace of mind. All customers can benefit from these updates, but for those still using NIOS 8.X, there’s never been a better time to upgrade.
What’s New in NIOS 9.0.6?
Gain Peace of Mind with the Long-Term Support Program
NIOS 9.0.6 introduces a new Long-Term Support (LTS) program that provides a longer support life and a more consistent experience for NIOS updates. Key changes include:
- LTS Program: By moving to an LTS model, Infoblox is committing to deliver a new LTS release train roughly every two years, providing a longer-term foundation for your mission-critical DDI platform. With guaranteed support for up to 24 months from the time new LTS versions are released, you can schedule fewer major upgrades and minimize risk. (Note: customers must migrate to the newest LTS version within six months of release.)
- Unified Update Experience Replaces Consolidated Hotfixes (CHFs): Previously, Infoblox customers used one interface for major NIOS upgrades and a separate CHF interface for interim updates and bugfixes. With NIOS 9.0.6, you’ll have the same consistent experience for all updates, reducing the risk of errors or confusion.
Simplify Software Upgrades
With NIOS 9.0.6, we’ve improved the software upgrade interface to provide more visibility, control and automation. Key updates include:
- Automated Debugging: The new interface analyzes installations for configuration errors, invalid certificates at both member and group levels, and other issues that could cause updates to fail. Previously, customers performed these checks manually, if at all. Now, upgrades cannot proceed until they’ve passed all checks.
- Enhanced Visibility and Control: You can now track the progress of all members and groups performing upgrades, and schedule member and group upgrades to keep critical DDI services online throughout the process.
- Improved Logging: The updated interface collects more extensive log information during upgrades, accelerating troubleshooting in the unlikely event of an issue.
Move Up to a Faster, Simpler, Feature-Rich NIOS 9.X Experience
Customers migrating from NIOS 8.X will get all the benefits of the new LTS program in a NIOS version that’s 1.5 times faster, 3 times simpler (with just 17 SKUs compared to 50) and includes 100+ new features. Enhancements include:
- Improved Performance: NIOS 9.X optimizes the industry’s premier DDI solution for the hybrid, multi-cloud enterprise. Tap into more than 100 new features and enhancements to ensure that your infrastructure stays secure, available and agile.
- Simplified Management: NIOS 9.X paves the way for Universal DDI management across your hybrid, multi-cloud business. It simplifies and automates network operations, reducing management overhead and costs through diverse integrations with cloud orchestration platforms. And it provides centralized visibility to manage all networks—on-premises, hybrid and multi-cloud environments—in the same way, with the same consistent experience.
- Future-Ready Integrations: NIOS 9.X combines the industry-leading DDI solution with state-of-the-art cloud orchestration platforms and automation tools, featuring integrations with Ansible, Terraform and many others.
Reduce Costs and Optimize Efficiency with New Certifications and Compliance Features
With NIOS 9.0.6, we’ve also certified NIOS on new cloud compute instances and virtualization frameworks and added support for DHCPv6 Fixed Address. Updates include:
- New AWS and Azure Compute Instances: Reduce costs and optimize efficiency of your vNIOS deployment by using the latest-generation compute instances in AWS and Azure. NIOS is now certified on Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) M7i and R7i instances, powered by fourth-generation Intel® Xeon® Scalable processors, and Azure Esv5 compute instances, powered by Intel Xeon Platinum processors.
- KVM Hypervisor on Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL): Optimize manageability and efficiency of vNIOS deployments by using KVM Hypervisor with RHEL 9.5, now fully qualified and supported by Infoblox.
- DHCPv6 Fixed Address: Streamline compliance with RFC6939 – Client Link-Layer Address Option in DHCPv6, now supported by NIOS. You can extend the MAC address-based identifiers used in DHCPv4 to DHCPv6, maintaining continuity as you evolve your network.
Learn More
For more information, visit the NIOS 9.X and Hybrid, Multi-Cloud microsites on Infoblox.com. For details on the LTS program, download the Long-Term Support Program Datasheet. You can also contact your preferred technology partner or account team, or access the Infoblox DDI Product Evaluation Portal for a free 60-day trial to start your journey toward a more reliable, secure and automated hybrid, multi-cloud network.
