Amazon Route 53 is a cloud DNS web service designed to route end user requests to Internet applications and resources by resolving domain names into IP addresses and vice versa. It connects user requests to infrastructure that runs in AWS, such as Amazon EC2 instances and load balancers. It can also route users to infrastructure outside of AWS. In Amazon Route 53, you organize DNS records into "hosted zones" that you configure through the Route 53 API. Infoblox NIOS provides the capability to synchronize with Amazon Route 53 and integrate hosted zones with the NIOS database so you can view Route 53 DNS data through a unified console.

There are two types of hosted zones: public and private. Note that private hosted zones created using Amazon Route 53 cannot resolve resources outside of AWS VPCs nor can it respond to DNS requests outside of the VPCs. If your cloud configuration involves on-premise networks and AWS VPCs in the AWS public cloud, you can address these limitations by integrating DNS data in AWS VPCs with NIOS for a unified DNS data visualization and management. You can also assign a NIOS appliance to serve DNS for imported hosted zones. For more information about Amazon Route 53, refer to the Amazon Route 53 documentation.

The Infoblox Amazon Route 53 integration feature offers the following:

• Synchronization of DNS data from your AWS VPCs and AWS GovCloud VPCs to the NIOS database (note that this is a one-way synchronization).

• Synchronization of DNS data from multiple AWS accounts of an AWS organization to NIOS by using a single NIOS cloud admin account. You can synchronize the DNS data of all child accounts in an AWS organization or, from NIOS 9.0.4 onwards, configure the list of child accounts for which the DNS data must be synchronized.

• A unified console (Grid Manager) across your enterprise networks and AWS hosted zones.

• Consolidated DNS and IPAM views for all DNS data through Grid Manager.

The below diagram illustrates how you can utilize the Infoblox Amazon Route 53 integration feature to achieve centralized DNS data visualization. In a Grid that consists of on-premise networks and an AWS public cloud, you define two Grid members to which Route 53 data is synchronized. The DNS data is synchronized from Amazon Route 53, and then transferred from the members to the Grid Master to be stored in the NIOS database. DNS clients (in the enterprise data center) can then query NIOS for the imported Route 53 DNS data. You can also view the imported DNS data through Grid Manager. Note that all synchronization is done at the hosted zone level from Amazon Route 53 to NIOS, NOT vice versa.

Amazon Route 53 Integration

Amazon Route 53 Hosted Zones

In Amazon Route 53, there are two types of hosted zones:

• Public Hosted Zones: Contain information about routing traffic and resource record sets for domains and sub domains of queries that come from the public Internet and are resolved within the AWS infrastructure.

• Private Hosted Zones: Contain information about routing traffic and resource record sets for domains and sub domains of queries that come from instances and resources of any given AWS VPCs and are resolved within one or more AWS VPCs.

The Amazon Route 53 GUI displays details about hosted zones. For each hosted zone, you can view information such as domain name, hosted name type, record set count, name servers (for public hosted zones) and VPCs (for private hosted zones). Note that the name servers (for public hosted zones) to which zone information is deployed are selected randomly by Route 53.

Each hosted zone supports a resource record set that includes records such as A/AAAA, Alias, PTR, NS, SOA, MX, TXT, SRV, and SPF. In the Amazon Route 53 GUI, you can view resource record details such as record name, record type, TTL value, record value, and routing policy. Resource records imported from Amazon Route 53 to NIOS are mapped to their corresponding NIOS resource record types, except for SPF records. Amazon Route 53 SPF records are mapped to TXT records in NIOS.