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Infoblox vNIOS™ for Microsoft Azure® is a virtual Infoblox appliance designed to operate in public, private Azure clouds and on-premises. For information about Azure, see https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/overview/what-is-azure.

vNIOS enables you to deploy robust, manageable, and cost-effective Infoblox appliances in Azure and on premises. NIOS provides core network services and a framework for integrating all components of the modular Infoblox solution. It provides integrated, secure, and easy-to-manage DNS (Domain Name System) and IPAM (IP address management) services. For more information about the Infoblox Grid, DNS, and IPAM, refer to the Infoblox NIOS Documentation.

You can deploy vNIOS instances, provision them to join the on-prem NIOS Grid, and then use them as the primary DNS servers to provide enterprise-grade DNS and IPAM services in Azure; for details,  see Configuring vNIOS for Azure as the Primary DNS Server. You can also use Infoblox Cloud Network Automation with your vNIOS instances, to streamline with IPAM, improve visibility of your cloud networks, and increase the flexibility of your cloud environment.

In this document, vNIOS appliances are referred to according to the environment in which they are deployed. The naming convention used for vNIOS appliances and the features and functionalities specific to the environment in which they are deployed, are: 

  • Infoblox vNIOS for Azure Public Cloud: Refers to the vNIOS appliance deployed on Microsoft Azure public cloud, a collection of integrated cloud services in the Microsoft public cloud.
    You can deploy this vNIOS appliance from the Microsoft Azure Marketplace or from the Azure CLI. For steps, see Deploying vNIOS for Azure from the Marketplace and Deploying vNIOS for Azure Public Cloud from the CLI.

    • After deploying the vNIOS appliance in the Azure public cloud, use vDiscovery to discover and periodically re-discover all resources in the VNets (Azure virtual networks) within your Microsoft cloud. For information about setting up vDiscovery in Azure, see Performing vDIscovery on VNets.

    • In addition to the DNS and IPAM services, vNIOS appliances deployed on Azure Public Cloud provide TFTP, HTTP, FTP, and other services, according to the licenses installed on them. While vNIOS can provide DHCP as a service, Microsoft Azure explicitly does not support any system running DHCP on Microsoft Azure for on-prem networks. For more information, see the Infoblox NIOS Documentation.

    • As there is no packet filtering on Azure Public Cloud, Infoblox vNIOS instances deployed on Azure Public Cloud support many DHCP lease requests.

    • With Network Insight appliances deployed on the Azure public cloud, use the discovery feature to detect devices in your network and to collect and manage the device data from Grid Manager. For more information on Network Insight, refer to the Infoblox NIOS Documentation.

  • Infoblox vNIOS for Azure Government: Refers to the vNIOS appliance deployed on Microsoft Azure Government. For more information and the deployment procedure, see the vNIOS for Azure Public Cloud topics in this guide.

  • Infoblox vNIOS for Azure Stack Hub: Refers to the vNIOS appliance deployed on Azure Stack Hub, which is a hybrid-cloud platform that enables a vNIOS appliance to deliver Azure services in an on-prem environment. You can deploy vNIOS for Azure Stack Hub instances from the Azure CLI or the Microsoft Azure Stack Hub portal. For steps, see Deploying vNIOS for Azure Stack Hub from the CLI.

    • In addition to the DNS and IPAM services, vNIOS appliances deployed on Azure Stack Hub provide TFTP, HTTP, FTP, and other services, according to the licenses installed. While vNIOS can provide DHCP as a service, Microsoft Azure explicitly does not support any system running DHCP on Microsoft Azure for on-prem networks. For more information, see the Infoblox NIOS Documentation.

    • As there is no packet filtering on Azure Stack Hub, Infoblox vNIOS instances deployed on Azure Stack Hub support many DHCP lease requests.

Limitations and Recommendations

Consider the following limitations and recommendations when deploying vNIOS for Azure:

  • DHCP failover does not work in environments with NAT configuration. When configuring a DHCP failover, ensure that the primary and secondary DHCP servers are not in NAT-configured environments.

  • The GMC (Grid Master Candidate) promotion test does not work in NAT-configured environments. Although the promotion fails the test, the GMC promotion operation completes successfully. For the promotion to pass the test, the GMC member and the other members in the Grid must not include the NAT configuration.

  • If you need to set a static IP address on the MGMT interface when configuring a vNIOS instance with multiple interfaces (LAN1 and MGMT), set it from the Grid Manager UI; for steps, refer to the Infoblox NIOS documentation. If you try to set the IP address from the NIOS CLI, the set interface mgmt command will fail to enable the MGMT interface, because NIOS assumes that the LAN1 IP address of a vNIOS instance deployed on any cloud platform is always dynamic.

  • Use the vNIOS for Azure appliances to provide DHCP services for networks on platforms other than Azure (Azure Public Cloud and Azure Stack Hub) because networks on Azure obtain their IP leases from the native DHCP servers even though NIOS is configured to provide DHCP services.

  • vNIOS for Azure instances do not support HA configuration and LAN2 interfaces.

  • vNIOS for Azure does not support the use of Weighted Random Early Detection (WRED) mechanism in network schedulers because the Elastic Network Adapter (ENA) poll-mode driver does not provide the API required for 100 Gbps ENA interfaces and also because the ixgbevf driver for the Intel NIC 82599 SR-IOV on Azure does not provide the API required for the 10 Gbps SR-IOV interfaces.

  • vNIOS for Azure Public Cloud:

    • Azure Public Cloud does not support IPv6 network configuration.

  • vNIOS for Azure Stack Hub:

    • Azure Stack Hub is supported only from NIOS 8.6.1 onwards. Ensure that you do not downgrade or auto-sync to a NIOS version that is earlier than 8.6.1.

    • Azure Stack Hub does not support IPv6 network configuration.

    • vNIOS for Azure Stack Hub appliances are not available for deployment from the Microsoft Azure Stack Hub Marketplace.

    • vNIOS for Azure Stack Hub appliances do not support vDiscovery.

    • In the current release, in Grid Manager, the Platform column on the Members tab displays the platform of a vNIOS for Azure Stack Hub member as Azure instead of Azure Stack Hub.

    • If you are using an Azure Stack Hub version earlier than 1.2102.28.87, sometimes, a vNIOS for Azure Stack Hub instance deployed from the Azure CLI might go to a Failed state. To fix this, redeploy the instance from the Azure Stack Hub portal. For more information, see Deploying a VM instance from the Microsoft Azure Stack Hub portal.

    • When deploying vNIOS for Azure Stack Hub, you might notice that some characters are missing in the messages displayed in the serial console log. This occurs because the default baud rate in Azure Stack Hub is 115200 and the default baud rate in NIOS is 9600.

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