Deploying the Data Connector Solution

The Infoblox Data Connector requires a Infoblox server to be tethered with. Prior to following steps in this guide you will need to deploy a server that meets minimum requirements, including a 750 GB disk. For details on requirements and deployment options, see Minimum System Requirements for Hosts. Data Connector works with various components in a hybrid cloud environment to deliver source data to configured destinations. To deploy the end-to-end Data Connector solution, set up your environment, sources, data types, destinations, data filters, and traffic flows according to the requirements and instructions provided by Infoblox.

To deploy the end-to-end Data Connector solution, do the following:

Deploying a Data Connector VM

1. Review the prerequisites and requirements, then set up your environment and components. For details, see Infoblox Platform Connectivity and Service Requirements.
2. If you do not already have a join token, create one. For details, see Creating Join Tokens.
3. Set up a Data Connector VM (virtual machine) by using either the Docker or OVA package (for container and VM) that Infoblox provides, and connect the virtual machine to the Infoblox Portal using the join token. For information on all installer packages, including the installers for Docker or the OVA package, see Downloading Infoblox Apps. All installer packages are available at Configure > Administration > Downloads of the Infoblox Portal. Within the Infoblox Portal, all available installer packages are listed in the drop-down menu of the NIOS-X (BloxOne) Servers section of the page.
   Note that you deploy a Data Connector VM as a server running the Data Connector service either in Universal DDI or Infoblox Threat Defense. For details, see Deploying NIOS-X Servers.

Generate and Install a Self-signed Certificate

A self-signed certificate is not the only option available, however it will be useful for quickly getting started. The self-signed certificate will be used further in NIOS Grid Manager and while configuring the source in Data Connector in the Infoblox Portal. The pem file will be used in the Data Connector Source Configuration for RPZ logs.

For information on creating a self-signed certificate for use with RPZ logs, see  Creating a Self-Signed Certificate for RPZ Logs.

Creating a Data Connector Service

1. Log in to the Infoblox Portal.
2. Create a Data Connector service instance and associate it with a configured server. For details, see Creating Services.

Configuring Traffic Flows

1. Before you configure traffic flows for Data Connector, you must first set up the sources from which you want Data Connector to collect data. Note that Infoblox Threat Defense is preconfigured as the source and destination, and Universal DDI is preconfigured as the source. No configuration is required on your part. For details, see Configuring Sources.
2. You must also configure the destinations to which you want Data Connector to send source data. For details, see Configuring Destinations.
3. Optionally, you can add ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) filters to extract specific source data before Data Connector sends the data to the configured destinations.
   For details, see Configuring ETL Filters.
4. Once you have configured sources, destinations, and ETL filters, you can configure not only the traffic flows that define the types of source data that will be collected from the sources but also the destinations to which the data will be sent. For details, see Configuring Traffic Flows.
5. NIOS IPMeta configuration flow to Infoblox Destination requires at least 16 GB RAM size for servers where ipmeta flows are configured. If there are more frequent DB object updates then the RAM size needs to be further increased based on the DB size. It can be doubled to the previous memory resource limit ( i.e 16 * 2 = 32 GB ).