A Grid is a group of two or more NIOS appliances that share sections of a common, distributed, built-in database and which you configure and monitor through a single, secure point of access: the Grid Master. A Grid can include Infoblox appliances and vNIOS appliances. A vNIOS appliance is a non-Infoblox hardware platform running the vNIOS software package. For supported vNIOS platforms, see vNIOS Appliances.
Infoblox appliances support both IPv4 and IPv6 networks and you can configure a Grid in one of the following modes:

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You can also add supported Reporting platforms as a logging and reporting devices in your Grid. Infoblox provides a few Infoblox platforms that you can use as the logging and reporting device. For information about the supported appliances, seeConfiguring Reporting Clustering. Infoblox reporting solution supports both IPv4 and IPv6 networks and you can configure a reporting member in either IPv4, IPv6, or in dual mode (IPv4 and IPv6) network environment. An IPv4-only Grid uses IPv4 as the Grid communication protocol, so you can add an IPv4 or dual mode reporting member to an IPv4-only Grid. An IPv6-only Grid uses IPv6 as the Grid communication protocol, so you can add an IPv6 or dual mode reporting member to an IPv6-only Grid. However, a dual mode Grid can use either IPv4 or IPv6 as the Grid communication protocol, so you can add an IPv4, IPv6, or a dual mode reporting member to a dual mode Grid. The reporting appliance collects data from members in the Grid and stores the data in the database. It then uses the data to generate predefined and user-defined reports that you can access through Grid Manager. These reports provide useful information about the IPAM, DNS, DHCP, and system activities and usage in your Grid. For more information about reporting, seeInfoblox Reporting and Analytics.

Instead of manually provisioning IP addresses and DNS name spaces for network devices and interfaces, you can add Cloud Platform Appliances to leverage DNS and DHCP features of the Grid to manage your CMPs (Cloud Management Platforms). For information about the Infoblox Cloud Network Automation solution and supported Grid configurations, seeDeploying Cloud Network Automation.

The following figure shows the basic concept of a Grid, database distribution (or "replication"), and reporting.

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• The VIP address, which links to the HA port on the active node of an HA Grid Master

• The IP address of the LAN1 port on a single Grid Master

• The IP address of the MGMT port (if enabled) of the active node of an HA or single Grid Master. See Using the MGMT Port.

Grid Communications

The Grid Master synchronizes data among all Grid members through encrypted VPN tunnels. The default source and destination UDP port number for VPN tunnels is 1194. You can continue using the default port number or change it. For example, if you have multiple Grids, you might want each Grid to use a different port so that you can set different firewall rules for each. Whatever port number you choose to use for the VPN tunnels in a Grid, all the tunnels in that Grid use that single port number.
Before an appliance or HA pair forms a tunnel with the master, they first authenticate each other using the Challenge-Response Authentication Mechanism (CRAM). The source and destination port number for this traffic is 2114. During the CRAM handshake, the master tells the appliance or HA pair what port number to use when building the subsequent VPN tunnel.

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