You may have noticed while perusing the site, sipping your black coffee from your oversized, stained mug, we've been quietly deploying user requested updates to the community. 

We've come a long way over the last few months, but there's more to come!  We'd like to thank all of the previous users of the now defunct bloxtools and NetCordia community site for "hanging in there" while we built bloxHub.  Believe it or not, we are fast approaching 90 days (launched it on May 3rd), and it's been a whirl-wind!

So, what's new to the site you ask?  Here are a few updates:

• Updated navigational elements to better find what you're looking for
• Display of the "solved icon" for users to quickly see which forum threads have been resolved.
• User Recognition Program - Now, when you submit content, post a question, comment, or solve a thread, you'll receive bloxHub Recognition and Rewards points!  Those points will accumulate and when you hit 200, you can redeem them for Starbucks cards, Amazon gift cards, among a variety of other options!
• Group Functionality - we've setup groups for Freeware Users, Traffic Integration Manager, among others.  We're also populating groups with content the members will find helpful.  Want to request a group?  Send us an email at community@infoblox.com
• Updated User Profile  - want to follow a user, subscribe to specific threads or follow a topic, you can now do that by visiting your profile and selecting the appropriate tab at the top of the page.
• New Polls and "Top Contributor" boards.  We're still tweaking how these will work and be displayed, so stay tuned.  If you have a poll you'd like to get responses, let us know and we'll get it scheduled!
• Product Management Blog, White Papers, and Video Sections.  These are all sections currently in the works that will provide valuable information about our products, "how to," "walk throughs," "Tips and Tricks," among other valuable information.  We'll announce these changes in a few weeks.  In the interim, keep a close eye on the homepage panels for white papers and cool tips!
• Last but not least, we're working on a developer program.  Yes, a program that will work in conjunction with the bloxtools snapins, and various downloads available on the site.  We have big plans!

 As always, we're interested in hearing what you think and what you'd like to see the community offer in the future. 

Our next updates include a more robust user profile, including subscription and notification settings, group membership updates, Local Calendar Of Events for end users and customers (similar to a corporate sponsored "meet up"), among a few other options you've been requesting. 

 Your feedback will shape our priorities moving forward -- you can drop us an email at community@infoblox.com,

I’ve been honored to work with F5 on the launch of the Infoblox Load Balancer Manager (LBM) product. This product integrates Trinzic DDI (specifically, a Grid Master) with the F5 Global Traffic Manager (GTM). It leverages the power of the Infoblox Grid to GTM. I believe that F5 users will thoroughly appreciate having a single pane from which to manage the entire DNS environment. Also, a new, intuitive hierarchical visualization allows you to view the relationship and status of the entire F5 environment. The product page lists the functionality of LBM and the solutions page describes how both products combine to create a unique global traffic and availability solution.  Lastly, you can find the datasheet here.

Visit the bloxHub Group focusing on the F5 partnership.

MW

Remember When?

We've been receiving quite a few requests to post the installation guides to the community!  We'll be updating the files as edits or additions are made - so go ahead and bookmark this page to keep up to date on all the guides.  We're in the process of also putting together a "Top 25" / FAQ, so if you have anything you'd like us to consider, post a comment or shoot us an email at community@infoblox.com

• 4030 Appliance Install Guide
• 800 Appliance Install Guide
• 2200 Appliance Install Guide
• 1400 Appliance Install Guide
• 2000 Appliance Install Guide
• 4000 Appliance Install Guide
• NetMRI NT-4000 Appliance Install Guide
• NetMRI 1102 A Appliance Install Guide

While most of you may never touch it, I was just explaining how CPD works and it occurred to me that it probably would be helpful to share this as it took me quite awhile to wrap my head around how to write proper rules with the CPD editor.

As you should already know, the policy engine simple and rule-logic builder tools are only good for global checks (something that only occurs once in a config).  The CPD tool is necessary for checking things like interfaces or ACL lists where you need to match more than one time.  

Generally, I design an interface check rule as "it has to be this or this or that or it's a problem,"  Here's a simple example; Customer would like to have a policy that states that any interface that is configured as an access port needs to have port security enabled.  Here's the CPD text to go with it.

Optional-Block:  

                interface (Gi|Fa) .+

                                switchport mode access

                                switchport port-security

Invalid-Block:

                interface (Gi|Fa) .+

                                switchport mode access

logic is: 

Find a match on interfaces that start with the text "interface Gi" or "interface Fa" (GigabitEthernet and FastEthernet Interfaces) that also contain the line "switchport mode access" and the line "switchport mode port-security".  (the tab indents are import as this is how the engine knows what block of lines in the config to work with).  

IF it's not a match, that's ok (it's optional). However, the invalid says, if I find an interface that starts with the text "interface Gi" or "interface Fa" and contains the line "switchport mode access", flag it as a violation.  

Since this works just like rule logic, evaluated in order, any  GigabitEthernet or FastEthernet interface that doesn't match the optional but does match the invalid will be flagged. All other interfaces will be ignored because they do not match either rule. 

Let me know what you think!

Eric

Are you interested in getting your questions answered, or interacting live with Infoblox directly online?  Then here is your chance!  Submit a reply to this post, and let us know what product questions you have.  The plan is to consolidate all submitted questions, and schedule the live event during the 4th quarter of the calendar year.  Don't worry if you can't make the live, online event - we'll post a transcript with all the questions submitted (and answered) and what's next!

So, submit your post with your product related questions between now and September 28th for them to be included in the live discussion!

Enjoy!

Eric

We are beginning to review the community forum areas to determine the topics you need!  When we launched, "bloxtools" was a common name around the now defunct community - so we want to revisit the topics you find most important.  We plan to update the forum area in the coming weeks, and hope that you'll provide your inputs as we kick start this endeavor.  By posting your thoughts by September 30, (or sending us a PM) we'll enter you in a drawing to win a $30 gift card to Amazon.com.

Best,

Eric

You likely heard that Internet registrar Godaddy.com had a 6-hour network outage this week and most initial predictions pointed to a hacker or DDoS attack.  However, CEO Scott Wagner stated the cause was actually “due to a corruption of router tables.”  From the post-mortem analysis, the issue that brought down their network appears to be tied very closely to changes that occur to core devices like routers and switches.   It is just another high-profile network problem that appears to be caused by the number 1 culprit of performance issues, network change.    

While Godaddy’s outage got worldwide headlines because of its size and number of impacted users, errors like this happen across the world every hour of every day for several key reasons:

• Manual change processes via CLI and/or custom scripts are time consuming and error-prone
• Changes are made outside maintenance windows and aren’t properly reviewed
• Changes are not completely documented, and
• Overburdened staff overlook and miss the change’s impact on other devices

Now if your organization had unlimited time, people and router/switch expertise, these problems likely wouldn’t impact overall network health.  But if you’re like the 99.99% of the rest of IT teams, you are already overburdened with day-to-day issues and firefights and you’re doing two, three or more things at one time. 

But if your organization cannot risk a six-hour outage or you’re still using CLI and Perl scripts for network changes, network automation can be a huge benefit.  The power of automation is the ability to do the tedious, time consuming, unglamorous tasks that we know should be done continuously, but don’t have the time, people or resources to do in our current environment.  For example, with Infoblox’s NetMRI platform, users get:

• Automatic detection and notification of changes for better documentation and no surprises
• Change automation to reduce manual time and eliminate risk of human error
• Configuration analysis to detect poor configuration settings often before end users are impacted
• Rollback options to reduce the time of impact by going back to previous state, and
• Network discovery, switch port management and compliance management.

We may never know if this problem was an inadvertent mistake, a rogue internal employee or an external hacker making unplanned changes to the network devices.  However, with NetMRI’s automatic detection of changes, the IT staff would have had a leg up on identifying the problem – whether it was an accident or malicious activity.  To learn more, go to http://www.infoblox.com/en/products/netmri.html

Share with us how you've explained the great change in networking over the years!

Wondering if anyone has seen "Add zone failed: 1006:Creating session with the server failed" in their Perl travels?  Check this out.

==========SNIP===========

#!/usr/local/ActivePerl-5.10/bin/perl

use Infoblox;

#Create a session to the Infoblox appliance

my $session = Infoblox::Session->new(

     master   => "192.168.0.25",

     username => "admin",

     password => "infoblox"

);

unless ($session) {

    die("Construct session failed: ",

        Infoblox::status_code() . ":" . Infoblox::status_detail());

}

print "Session created successfully\n";

#Create the zone prior to a CNAME record insertion

my $zone = Infoblox::DNS::Zone->new(name => "domain.com");

unless ($zone) {

    die("Construct zone failed: ",

        Infoblox::status_code() . ":" . Infoblox::status_detail());

}

print "Zone object created successfully\n";

#Verify if the zone exists

my $object = $session->get(object => "Infoblox::DNS::Zone", name => "domain.com");

unless ($object) {

    print "Zone does not exist on server, safe to add the zone\n";

$session->add($zone)

       or die("Add zone failed: ",

              $session->status_code() . ":" . $session->status_detail());

}

print "Zone added successfully\n";

==========/SNIP==============

If you have been around the community for any length of time, you've undoubtedly noticed an increase in the amount of content.  We've recently added a "Tool Time" Product Management Blog, along with a consolidation of a few others into the new "Corporate Blog," where the marketing team will be highlighting new developments for products, services, and partnership arrangements.

Shortly, we'll be reviewing/revising the names of some sections to highlight changes in our strategy and new programs/products launching.  We're also continuing to review and consider the bloxTools developer program, and generating scripts that will help provide solutions for you.

As always, if you have questions, comments, or suggestions, we are hear4u.

Best,

Eric

As bloxHub continues to grow and create its own identity, we have received a number of exciting messages from users about the user interface, site design, content updates, and other messages.  It's great to receive this feedback; suggesting we're on the right track in providing what you, our users, need to be successful.

Along with the "warm and fuzzies," there are inevitable growing pains.  It's these growing pains that give us time to take pause and realize there is more we should do - scratch that - more we must do, to keep this community vibrant, active, alive and growing. 

Recently, we were notified of an issue where a user was attempting to submit a new forum post, and it timed out during the "select a forum category" step.  We have been able to replicate this issue, and we've escalated the problem with our hosting partner.  We are awaiting a response from the vendor on the solution. 

• You will only notice this problem if you are trying to submit a new forum thread (to the NetMRI, DDI, or a Group).    The ability to comment on current posts is working just fine.

I want all of you to know we appreciate your continued interest and use of the site, and we ask that you bear with us as we fix this issue, and strive to provide a world-class community for Infoblox customers and partners.  Once over this hurdle, we plan on bringing Interest Groups, along with new product listings to the community!

Please feel free to comment here, as we'd like your feedback and inputs.

Best,

Eric

Hey everyone,

There's been an "uptick" of conversations regarding our ibsmart script, and I'm pleased to announce we are looking for folks to provide feedback on our most recent version, to be released to those of you interested in providing suggestions.

Not familiar with ibsmart? It is the Infoblox Services Monitor and RRset Tracker. Its purpose is to monitor a set of services on a group of hosts and manage the RRset for those hosts. An RRset is defined as a set of resource records with the same domain name, class and type. If a service on a host becomes unavailable, the A RR (Address Resource Record) is removed from the RRset by disabling it using the Perl API. When the service becomes available, the RR is added back to the RRset by enabling it. This provides a simple yet powerful mechanism to implement intelligent DNS round robin based services. See the "ibsmart 101" blog post for additional information.If you're interested in providing feedback for our ibsmart script, it has been updated and is now in Beta. 

If you want to check out the previous version, you can find it in our download section here:

http://www.infoblox.com/community/downloads/ibsmart

Leave a comment here, or send us an email at community@infoblox.com and let us know you'd like to check out the new Beta version.

Best,

Eric

You may have noticed over the last few days a group of new Device Support Bundles uploaded to the site.  They include:

• Avocent acs6048 Console Server
• HP 5406zl switch-router
• Alcatel OS6850EP48 Switch-Router
• Dell PowerConnect 7048 Switch
• HP 3500YL Switch

If you have a device requiring a DSB, please send us a note at community@infoblox.com

On a final note, we are moving closer to a few developer partners coming on board.  Specifically, folks who are contracted with Infoblox to help build unique solutions.  More to come in the following week(s).

Eric

Have you recently become an Infoblox customer?  If so, we're looking for your feedback!  For providing your inputs, you'll receive a $20 gift card to Amazon or Starbucks!

We want to provide you with the documentation, videos, and helpful tips to make your installation and getting started with Infoblox as effortless as possible.

We are looking to create an area on bloxHub that will provide you the necessary content, whether:

• Getting Started Documents
• FAQ information
• Helpful Videos and "How To" content
• Training Videos

Please take the time to let us know what information would help you "Get Started" with Infoblox, and we'll work toward making this available to you on the community!  Reply here, or send us an email at community@infoblox.com

After a long Thanksgiving weekend, it's often times difficult to get back into "the swing of things" at the office.  Over the last week in the US, you'd hear the mantra, "family, food, and football."  Around bloxHub, our mantra has been "enable, support, and engage!"  What do I mean?  Over the  last week, you may have noticed a few updates to bloxHub, including:

• Support: <perl> code styler and support.  It'll be much easier for you to paste your perl code, and have it styled accordingly now.
• Enable: WYSIWYG editor is now available for everyone for new threads, in addition to comments.
• Auto enable URLs is now "back on." 
• Engage: over the last few weeks, we've seen a significant increase in users engaging on the site, and forums marked as solved!

As we get closer to wrapping up 2012, you'll continue to notice new areas being released on the community.  As always, please continue to give us a "shout out" for anything you'd like to see.  We may not be striving for "family, food, and football" around here, but we are working toward providing the proverbial "cake and eating it too..."

Hola - I'm Seth Hammerman, SE Manager here at Infoblox - just got back from a few stops in Latin America. A terrific Partner Training event in Bogotá, Colombia and Cisco Live! in Cancun, Mexico. For all of our Latin American Customers, Partners and Prospects - Bienvenidos Todos!

Please check out our Infoblox Web Page in Spanish: http://www.infoblox.es

Saludos Y Gracias,

Seth Hammerman
Senior Systems Engineering Manager
Infoblox  |  Automated Network Control
(T) +1-201-773-8870  (M) +1-201-232-4995
seth@infoblox.com  |  www.infoblox.com

I wanted to let you know about a couple of short videos we've recently released. These are introduction videos to our product lines, so if you're evaluating our products for possible implementation on your network, or trying to explain what our products do to someone within your organization, these are good resources for you.

More Control, Less Effort with Infoblox NetMRI Network Automation

Essential Network Control with Infoblox Trinzic DDI (DNS, DHCP & IPAM)