A. H. Belo
“Because of a recent BIND challenge, we performed an upgrade and it was really simple to do. With Infoblox, the upgrade process takes mere minutes, instead of hours with other systems, and I have no fear about outage windows.”
— Randy McEoin, Director of Network and Security, DallasNews Corporation
THE CUSTOMER: DALLASNEWS CORPORATION
A. H. Belo Corporation owns and operates The Dallas Morning News and Medium Giant. The company also owns and manages the various websites associated with these properties.
The newspaper’s close community ties, strong journalistic reputation, and intense regional focus draw a readership of over 12 million across the paper’s properties.
THE CHALLENGE
An Unreliable and Time-Consuming Hodge-Podge of Open Source Products
The publishing company previously relied on a BIND and an old Linux system to deliver domain name system (DNS), dynamic host configuration protocol (DHCP), and IP Address Management (IPAM). However, the system proved to be unreliable and consumed administration overhead.
These systems also lacked a user-friendly interface and were challenging to maintain. Frequent updates had to be made to the general operating system and numerous steps were required to process simple domain name record and DHCP changes.
Customer: DallasNews Corporation
Industry: Entertainment, Media, and Communications
Location: Dallas, Texas
Objectives: Replace unreliable and difficult-to-manage legacy systems, Streamline DNS administrative tasks and gain operational efficiencies
Results: Achieved nonstop DNS and DHCP service delivery, Automated administrative tasks, such as IP address management, Accelerated troubleshooting and problem resolution, Adopted efficient network configuration
Products: Trinzic appliances, NetMRI
Randy McEoin, Director of Network and Security at DallasNews Corporation, found Infoblox to be a solid decision to reduce manual-task related errors, improve network availability, and increase visibility. For these reasons, he continued to further the company’s dependence on Infoblox for it’s appliance-based DNS and DHCP solution with built-in IP address management (IPAM), and intuitive graphical user interface (GUI).
THE SOLUTION
A Unified, Centrally-Managed Platform that Frees IT for Higher Level Thinking
McEoin’s IT team is very lean with only 1 dedicated resource for IP address management services, so establishing a network that was as automated and efficient as possible was critical.
DallasNews Corporation selected Trinzic appliances with Grid technology, which links a collection of appliances into a unified, centrally managed platform. Benefits include resilient DNS and DHCP service delivery, unified management, and real-time, secure, system-wide updates.
DallasNews Corporation originally deployed two HA pairs at Riverside, California and Dallas, Texas. In 2011, they deployed another HA pair to Providence, Rhode Island. These boxes are managing all centrally via Grid connection and Infoblox’s intuitive GUI. The devices also leverage Infoblox’s built-in IP address management functionality, which allows them to track IP addresses that are given out throughout the entire network. Prior to Infoblox, it was difficult to have any reliable knowledge of the IP address allocations.
“Infoblox’s solutions have made it possible for us to scale and address all the issues with our previous DNS, DHCP, and IPAM systems,” said McEoin. He was particularly impressed with the high availability features, central management, easy updates/patching, ‘one-button’ disaster recovery capability and Grid technology.
McEoin added, “We recently performed an upgrade because of a recent BIND challenge and it was really simple to do. With Infoblox, I am confident and have no fear about any outage windows.”
DallasNews Corporation will soon deploy NetMRI, an automated solution that will provide the newspaper company with a complete audit of the network on a daily basis. Automated reports provide great insight to the overall health, giving a quick snap shot of network strengths and the areas that need attention. A scorecard also includes a configuration report that allows McEoin to compare current configurations with previous ones.
THE RESULTS
Instant, Reliable, and Real-Time Network Services
The Trinzic appliances with Grid technology and NetMRI solutions were easy to deploy and simple to upgrade because they eliminate the need to install and manage an operating system and they offer an intuitive graphical user interface (GUI). DNS and DHCP services are now easily delivered by a purpose-built, HA appliance that is inherently secure, reliable, and scalable, freeing network administration resources for these critical network services.
McEoin’s task of managing the newspaper’s IP addresses also has simplified tremendously. He no longer manually assigns IP addresses nor does he keep track of them in spreadsheets. The Trinzic appliances allow him to track IP address allocation in real-time and view the address scheme across the entire network with visual maps and easily filtered segments.
McEoin concluded, “Business continuity is essential to us. We can now instantly and routinely obtain vital, real-time data about our network 24/7.”