To create a Grid, you first create a Grid Master, and then add members. Although the Grid Master can be a single appliance (a "single master"), a more resilient design is to use an HA pair (an "HA master") to provide hardware redundancy. For information about HA pairs, see About HA Pairs. The basic procedure for forming two appliances into an HA master is shown in the Initially Configuring a Pair of Appliances as a Grid Master figure. You can create a Grid Master in either IPv4, IPv6, or dual mode (IPv4 and IPv6). An IPv4 Grid Master uses IPv4 as the Grid communication protocol, so it supports IPv4 and dual mode Grid members. An IPv6 Grid Master uses IPv6 as the Grid communication protocol, so it supports IPv6 and dual mode Grid members. A dual mode Grid Master supports IPv4, IPv6, and dual mode Grid members. You can set either IPv4 or IPv6 as the communication protocol. All Infoblox hardware platforms, except for appliances with a 50 GB disk, support configuration as a Grid Master or Grid Master candidate. For information about which vNIOS appliance supports configuration as a Grid Master, see vNIOS Appliances.
Initially Configuring a Pair of Appliances as a Grid Master
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To create a Grid, you first create a Grid Master and then add members. Although you can define a single appliance as a Grid Master, using an HA pair provides hardware redundancy for this vital component of a Grid. You can create an HA Master in either IPv4, IPv6, or in dual mode. An IPv4 HA Master uses IPv4 as the communication protocol between the two nodes and for Grid communication. An IPv6 HA pair uses IPv6 as the communication protocol between the two nodes and for Grid communication. But in a dual mode HA pair, you can select either IPv4 or IPv6 as the communication protocol between the two nodes and for Grid communication. The following procedure explains how to put two NIOS appliances on the network and use the Grid Setup Wizard to configure them as Nodes 1 and 2 to form an HA Grid Master. For information about which vNIOS appliance supports configuration as an HA Grid Master, see vNIOS Appliances.
Configuring the Connecting Switch
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Although using an HA master is ideal because of the hardware redundancy it provides, you can also use a single appliance as the Grid Master. You can create a single Grid Master in either IPv4, IPv6, or dual mode (IPv4 and IPv6). Infoblox recommends frequent backups if the Grid Master is a single appliance, and there is no Master Candidate. For information about which vNIOS appliance supports configuration as a single Grid Master, see vNIOS Appliances.
Setting up an appliance as a single Grid Master is very easy. If the appliance has the DNSone package with the Grid upgrade, it is already a Grid Master. You simply need to define the network settings for its LAN1 port. The various procedures for defining the network settings for the LAN1 port of a single independent appliance apply here as well. Therefore, you can use any of the following procedures to define the network settings for the LAN1 port of the appliance that you want to make a single Grid Master:
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