BlueCat Integrity Reviews

The purpose of the solution is to provide DNS, DHCP, and icon services for the corporation and all subsidiaries. 

I like that it's a single source of truth for us. We automate against it. We use APIs against it due to the fact that it is where the data is. The solution provides a single pane of glass view. And we use it as a single source of truth. It’s crucial for us.

It’s flexible. The tool can certainly be customized to no end. You can make a lot of stuff work if you're willing to divert from the standard options, which of course then brings the risk that you're not running the planned configuration. We have a few border cases, so we actually do that.

The solution helped our organization reduce downtime. Compared to where it was before, even if it's a very theoretical question, I’d say the downtime has decreased.

BlueCat Integrity helped us consolidate tools or applications. Through an API and having the data there we were able to build some tools that have allowed us to get rid of a lot of other tools.

It is not that easy to use. It's not rocket science, however, even compared to other products in the BlueCat portfolio, it's one of the most complicated.

The big downside of the customization is when there are new releases and you have to customize all of it again since you’ve diverted from the standard.

One of my biggest criticisms is that you need additional pieces of software. Competitors have a lot of these things built into one solution. BlueCat doesn't. I need additional resources to actually do things. You actually need a lot of add-ons from the solution's portfolio. While some of them are provided, most you have to pay for separately. In reality, they should just be part of the product.

The reporting capabilities need improvement. It holds a lot of information, and that information is easily accessible in the tool and through API. However, for instance, the moment anybody who is not a user of the product asks me for some information and I just want to run a report to hand back to them or something like that, it gets utterly complicated. 

Quite a few times we have not been able to pull reports out of the tool and provide them.  

Usability needs to be better. The main structure basically hasn't changed in years. It's got a bit polished, however, it doesn't really have a modern UI-based tool. That said, the product is being used by IT professionals. Still, sometimes the old design makes things unnecessary and difficult.

I've been using the solution for four years now. 

BlueCat is stable. 

The solution is scalable in multiple ways. There are lots of ways to scale. 

While we did not exactly use anything else from the DDI side, we were using Windows DNS.

The main reason for the adoption of this product was to have one centralized management system. That was one of the key drivers. Also, we wanted visibility and stability for having that single source of truth.

We're running one special environment that is fully deployed in the cloud, and our main environment is deployed on-prem remotely.

It's easy to deploy on-prem and even easier to deploy the cloud version. Our migration team deployed the solution. They were comprised of three people. It took us a year to deploy, however, we had to make the whole transition to remote work first. 

We use the solution globally. We have it across a few production campus facilities and 25 subsidiaries globally. 

We have to run the updates. We're on our own for that. We basically do the data. When we get the notifications, we go into scheduling the when, what, and how internal testing will take place. We plan to do all of this in-house.

Of course, we have to monitor the devices themselves. They sometimes act up, and sometimes the product does not report certain issues efficiently and then we have to dig into the log file. There is a lot of proactive maintenance in that regard. The good thing is that the product is so standardized and open. At the end of the day, of course, I would prefer not to have to do it. 

BlueCat helped with implementation. During the design phase, we had some workshops with them and they provided good insights and best practices.

We have witnessed an ROI while using the product. The ROI mainly comes from the initiative itself, including centralizing data and having automated server deployment. We've saved money across a variety of products, so it's hard to pinpoint an exact number. 

We are paying for an enterprise license. I'm not aware of the exact cost. The pricing, as far as I understand it, is fair. It's not cheap and also not expensive. 

We use the API to do certain calls, however, not with ServiceNow or any other ITSM. It's more for other really technical tools that need specific kinds of information. We don’t really do integrations.

To anyone at an organization who doesn't think they need a full stack integrated management solution, I'd say, actually, this is an absolute must-have. Automation really is the biggest driver. I could not see how someone could ever do any meaningful automation without having this kind of platform. Also in terms of security, it's important for security initiatives. You simply need to have the visibility of your network. That's another big one. 

If a person is interested in the solution, it's important to evaluate the product. Look for a reference customer and dig into the possibilities of the product.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten. 

We have been a partner of BlueCat for two years now, and we are responsible for deploying the solution over the Middle East region. I have the most experience with BlueCat Integrity.

BlueCat Integrity is generally easy to use and administer, though the ease of use can vary depending on the user's experience level. Migration can be complex for beginners or those new to IT, but daily operation is straightforward.

BlueCat Integrity provides a single interface for managing IP address space, DNS, and DHCP within one console. Many organizations have separate consoles or teams for these functions, leading to unused IP space and a lack of awareness regarding its allocation. If team members leave, knowledge of this IP space is lost, resulting in wasted resources and inefficient management, especially when viewed from a cross-team perspective.

It provides immediate benefits by allowing us to easily migrate our existing files to its software. The software then automatically identifies any missing or misconfigured elements in our network environment, providing a comprehensive overview and improving overall efficiency.

The primary migration tool helps reduce human error by automating the transfer of existing network configurations into the BlueCat system. This tool simplifies the migration process and verifies configurations against industry best practices, highlighting potential issues. While BlueCat offers recommendations, it ultimately allows users to make informed decisions and retain specific configurations necessary for their unique environment, such as those required for certain products to function correctly.

BlueCat consolidates disparate network management tools. Organizations often rely on default Microsoft DNS and DHCP servers, which are separate tools within Active Directory, and manage IP addresses through the DHCP server. This results in three separate components with different consoles and configurations. BlueCat streamlines this by integrating all these functions into a single, unified platform.

It has helped organizations by providing automation features that can handle specific IT tasks, freeing up IT staff for other projects.

BlueCat reduces the total cost of ownership by automating tasks, which allows IT staff to focus on other projects instead of managing DNS and DHCP tools. Additionally, BlueCat consolidates functionalities into a single server, decreasing infrastructure costs associated with separate solutions and consoles. This automation and consolidation significantly reduce IT costs.

Once correctly configured and deployed, it offers significant relief through its automation capabilities. This automation enables features like automatic failover to redundant DNS or DHCP servers, eliminating concerns about server failures and ensuring service continuity. IP address management can also be automated based on device and location, further streamlining network administration. With proper configuration, BlueCat Integrity minimizes the need for ongoing manual intervention and reduces the administrative burden on network administrators.

The most valuable feature of BlueCat Integrity is decentralized management, which enables real-time visibility and control over the entire IP address space, DNS, and DHCP from a single console. This feature is crucial for organizations.

The user interface could be improved, as the implementation of BlueCat can be complicated and requires personnel with expertise in DNS, DHCP, and IP management.

We have been a partner of BlueCat for two years.

BlueCat is a well-known, stable solution in the community, with an architecture designed for reliability. The appliance itself provides a clustered environment, so even if one service fails, there's no need for manual configuration or worry. This built-in redundancy minimizes service disruptions, ensuring your network runs smoothly at all times.

BlueCat Integrity's scalability depends on the type of appliance used, so we typically communicate with the customer to determine their IP address and DNS server needs. Virtual appliances offer inherent scalability by simply adding resources for smooth software operation, with performance contingent on the provided hardware specifications.

BlueCat's customer support, particularly its solutions team, has been excellent. While I've collaborated extensively with its partner team, including solution architects, I haven't needed to contact its general technical support.

Positive

We have seen customers using Infoblox and Microsoft IPAM, and we have migrated these customers to BlueCat. BlueCat is better because it provides a unique blend of features and flexibility.

Implementing BlueCat Integrity itself is straightforward, but migrating data from older configurations and consolidating solutions can be complex for those who aren't seasoned professionals.

The deployment of the solution itself takes about two or three hours. Migration depends on the size of the IP address management and can take nearly 24 hours.

The number of people required for deployment depends on their experience with the BlueCat solution. As an implementation service provider, we could deploy with two people at most. While the interface may seem complex to those unfamiliar with it, customers should also be able to deploy with two to three people: one with IP knowledge, one with DNS expertise, and one with DHCP experience. Ultimately, the most crucial requirement is someone who thoroughly understands the environment where the solution will be deployed.

I handle professional services as a partner, providing integration and migration support to customers in the Middle East. It typically requires two people to implement the solution.

BlueCat helps reduce IT cost because it automates many tasks. This automation frees up staff for other projects and consolidates several solutions onto a single server, reducing infrastructure costs.

I would rate BlueCat Integrity nine out of ten. The only negative is the complexity that can occur around migrations.

BlueCat is not typically used to directly prevent downtime. While its DNS functionality helps resolve domain names, this depends entirely on how it's configured within your organization or solution. BlueCat doesn't actively support downtime prevention. Although it aids in the handover process between multiple DNS or DHCP servers, it offers no active functionality to prevent downtime for a single DNS server.

Upgrading BlueCat Integrity requires some downtime, regardless of whether it's a physical or virtual appliance. The process involves setting up the new appliance and migrating the configuration from the old appliance. While virtual appliance migration typically takes under an hour, physical appliance upgrades require additional time for installation and initial setup. The configuration transfer is relatively quick, simply importing and exporting existing settings.

If someone believes they don't need a full DDI solution, I recommend they first verify their IP address management is accurate and all allocated addresses are being utilized effectively. They should also confirm their DNS is functioning correctly and that critical services are operating as expected. There's a high chance of misconfigurations or outdated settings that could lead to downtime or security vulnerabilities. This is where a dedicated DDI solution can provide comprehensive management and prevent potential issues.

New users should understand their organization's IP structure and DNS configurations before implementing BlueCat for a smooth experience. It is important to be familiar with DDI technologies.

We primarily use BlueCat Integrity for DNS purposes internally. 

We deployed BlueCat Integrity using a hybrid model because many of our applications are finance-related. This product helps us to secure those applications.

BlueCat Integrity is very user-friendly. Its interface is easy to navigate and has all the features we were looking for, compared to other vendors. This made it easier for us to manage and deploy in our complex environment, which includes multiple domains and acquired companies.

We have integrated ServiceNow with our DNS server. If any alerts are created or any issues are detected, we receive an alert directly in ServiceNow, which is then routed to a specific team.

BlueCat Integrity provides a single pane of glass view of our IP addresses, which is useful for our organization. We sometimes lose track of which IP address range is assigned to which server or team, but BlueCat Integrity keeps track of everything for us, making it easy to see at a glance which IP addresses are assigned to Team A or Team B for example.

BlueCat Integrity helps to prevent human error. If we enter incorrect information, such as an incorrect subnet, BlueCat Integrity displays a pop-up message stating that the information is incorrect and that we should recheck the configuration. This is an add-on feature that is not available in other solutions.

It has helped us reduce downtime. When we used Windows DNS, we had many issues, such as the server hanging occasionally. We had to reboot the entire server during production hours, which caused major incidents. BlueCat Integrity has minimized these incidents, and we now have zero downtime. Nothing has happened on our site since we implemented it. All major incident calls have been eliminated.

BlueCat Integrity helped us consolidate by eliminating our old DNS server, which we used to track command-line or third-party utilities. This saved us costs, as we no longer need to purchase licenses for those tools. Everything is now visible through BlueCat Integrity.

It helps us free up staff time. With our old DNS system, we had to engage all of our staff many times, such as at midnight, during the day, or operations. This took a lot of time for us to process the product queue. For example, if I wanted to send someone on training, I had to cancel it because of these issues. But now, 

We have peace of mind because we no longer receive major incident calls late at night or early in the morning.

DNS aliases, which we use extensively in our applications are a valuable feature. We simply provide the alias to users, and they cannot see the real IP address or DNS name. This feature is specific to each application and is very powerful for us.

I would like the GUI to be similar to AWS and Azure, where we can simply click on an item to expand it and see all the information on one page, without having to click to the next page.

I have been using BlueCat Integrity for over ten years.

BlueCat Integrity was down only once in the last year for a security patch.

We have not had any issues with the scalability of BlueCat Integrity. We have already implemented a load-balancing solution with seven appliances, so if we need to replace one, the others will take over. We have the same setup in staging, development, and lab environments. We test all new changes in the lab environment before moving them to staging and then to production. This is a very well-balanced product.

Originally, we used Microsoft DNS, but it had many problems. We had to purchase and constantly monitor many tools with Microsoft. If we skipped an option during configuration, we would continue to receive error messages, and we would have to check the event logs to keep track of those errors. BlueCat Integrity is very easy to manage, so we chose it.

Multiple teams were involved in the step-by-step implementation. The infrastructure architecture team analyzed the requirements and then passed them to us for the proof of concept. Once the POC was completed, we implemented the changes in the development environment, then in the staging environment, and finally in the production environment.

We evaluated BlueCat Integrity and other vendors and found that BlueCat Integrity was one of the most reliable options in terms of both security and administration. Their support team was also helpful and quick.

I give BlueCat Integrity a ten out of ten.

BlueCat Integrity does not require maintenance. There are no specific patches and the solution updates automatically so we don't have any additional downtime.

The value and security that BlueCat Integrity adds to an organization demonstrates the value of a full-stack integrated DDI management solution.

BlueCat Integrity is the most reliable DDI solution with awesome customer support. Whenever we have any issues or urgent customer or business needs, they are always there to help. We call them and they immediately start working on the issue, and they come up with a solution quickly. We can usually implement the solution within one or two days. Their customer support is that good.

We use BlueCat Address Manager for the DHCP and DNS servers.

It provides a single-pane-of-glass view of our IP address space. It's pretty critical for us because the whole organization depends on it for IP address assignments. We have a big network. To assign an IP, I don't want to go to different servers or give the wrong IP. I can just go to Address Manager, which gives me a complete view of everything. Even while troubleshooting, I don't have to jump through two different things or four different things to solve a problem.

It's flexible. For example, just the day before yesterday, I ended up upgrading it from one version to two jumps. It happened pretty seamlessly. In the past, I had to jump, for example, from 9.1.0 to 9.1.1 and so on, but recently, even though we were down two versions, we were able to do it in one shot. That was big for me.

It has helped reduce human error, especially if you're looking at it from the perspective of having one pane. You don't want IP conflicts. If I was using two different platforms for my big organization, it's possible that I could assign the same IP to something else, and then there would be a conflict. It reduces errors in that sense because you have one Address Manager that provides a complete view of the organization. If I assign an IP, it's one IP that we know about.

It reduces downtime. For example, while troubleshooting an issue, if I had to look at several panes, it could take me an hour to get to the bottom of the issue, whereas, with BlueCat, I can literally jump into my Address Manager and look for that specific IP. I get to know immediately which subnet it is. I can then track it within two or three minutes.

It has helped to consolidate tools. We are currently doing consolidation. We are integrating with another company, and in addition to DHCP, we are about to get BlueCat for DNS as well. We are in the process of working with BlueCat to move DNS from AD to BlueCat.

It has definitely helped free up our IT staff for other projects.

It's a critical infrastructure piece. This is where all the IPs are named for the whole organization. It's a big deal. It has all the features related to DNS and DHCP. It's pretty amazing.

It's pretty robust. I haven't experienced any issues with it since I've been working with it. 

It's easy to use and easy to understand. It's pretty user-friendly. I like its user interface. It's pretty easy to use once you get around it. With the new version of the software, they changed the whole interface. From version 9.1 to 9.3, it's a totally different interface. The new interface is even better. 

The DNS and DHCP servers for guests are separated from the main organization. A lot of times, it doesn't allow you to choose a default IP space. When I log in to the GUI, it doesn't default to where I want it to be. So far, I haven't been able to find out how to change or specify that so that it defaults to a particular space, such as the main org. If I'm looking for the IP space for guests, I need to toggle and go to the guest site. Most of the time, I want the IP space for the org to be my main space, but it doesn't give me the ability to do that, or I haven't been able to find that over the last two years. I want the org one to be the default one, but a lot of time, it defaults to the guest.

The company has been using it for years. I've been using it for about two years since I've been with the company.

It hasn't broken. Since I've been here, the application itself has never broken. In the past two years, we haven't had any problem with it, not even one single day. That's something huge in my field.

We have more than 15 sites. We have more than 50,000 employees.

I love their customer service. They are pretty awesome. I've been working with them over the last few weeks on the version upgrade. I'd rate them a 10 out of 10. They haven't made me upset yet.

An example of their service is that I made a mistake today where instead of putting in a ticket as a standard request, I put it in as urgent. After I hit submit, I got a conference invite within a minute because it was urgent. I thought that was exceptionally fast. I don't remember that with Infoblox or any other organization.

Positive

Before I joined the company, I used a totally different platform. This was new to me, but I was able to get around it without any issues. So, there is ease of use.

I used Infoblox previously. Compared to Infoblox, I found BlueCat easier to use. When I used Infoblox, my networking experience wasn't that great. That might have been a part of the issue. It felt more difficult for me to use, but when I came to this organization, they had BlueCat, and it was totally different. It was the same concept but a different platform. I didn't have any difficulty with it. I was able to jump in and use it. So, if I have to compare these two, it was easier for me to use BlueCat.

I wasn't involved in its deployment. The deployment was done before I joined this organization.

In terms of maintenance, they require us to keep up with upgrades.

It provides a good service and experience. There is a single pane of glass, and Address Manager provides a full view of everything. Most solutions do have that, but the big thing for me is stability and not having any issues for a long time. When we had Infoblox, the remote sites would die pretty often. All of the sudden, the site wouldn't receive IP addresses because the little box at the site died. You have to go and either kill the process completely or reboot the device. That was a problem. I have not seen that with BlueCat. We have more than 15 appliances at different locations, not just a single one. Over the past two years that I've been around, none has gone down.

To someone at an organization who doesn’t think that they need a full-stack, integrated DDI management solution, I would say that in our current situation, for some reason, we ended up not combining DHCP and DNS. We only had the DHCP and then DNS was being done by AD. That caused us a tremendous amount of problems in terms of just integrating systems and so on. So, it would make more sense to have an integrated full stack of it so that it's doing everything that you need instead of having it piecemeal. That became very prominent when we were doing our merger with the new company. They were using the full stack of it, and we were not.

Overall, I'd rate it a 10 out of 10.

Our company provides network infrastructure management services for ten clients. We handle DNS, DHCP, and IPAM for these clients, all utilizing the BlueCat Integrity platform.

The most effective features for IP management are log reviews and configuration management.

BlueCat Integrity is easy to use but it can be time-consuming. It has improved our troubleshooting. We can go to the server and see the logs.

BlueCat Integrity has helped reduce downtime andhas saved 50 percent of our time.

It has streamlined our IT team's workflow, freeing up valuable time for other projects. The intuitive user interface simplifies the process of provisioning IP addresses to customers.

We recommend the BlueCat automation to our customers because it saves almost 50 percent of our time. Through the self-service portal, our customers can complete their requests themselves.

BlueCat Integrity helped improve network stability.

The professional DNS and support service helps integrate BlueCat Integrity.

The most valuable features of BlueCat Integrity are the user-friendly UI and the permission management.

A common complaint about BlueCat is that adding new features or making even small changes requires a full deployment process, which can be time-consuming. This is especially problematic for deployments using SSP (hidden primary), the business-critical DNS server, which can take up to seven minutes to deploy depending on network size.

Unfortunately, BlueCat Integrity doesn't support bulk Content Security Policy configuration. We'll need to set these policies manually for each element or develop a script to automate the process.

I have been using BlueCat Integrity for two and a half years.

I would rate the stability of BlueCat Integrity eight out of ten. At times we get high utilization on some servers. 

I would rate the scalability of BlueCat Integrity ten out of ten.

The technical support is responsive and they have resolved any issues we have had.

Positive

We previously implemented Infoblox and it remains in use, but we've also added BlueCat Integrity to our network management toolset. We prefer the integration and automation in BlueCat.

While BlueCat Integrity is easy to deploy, the overall deployment time varies based on network complexity. New customers can be up and running in two weeks, but migrating existing configurations from Infoblox to BlueCat Integrity can take up to three months. This is because the migration involves a staged approach, transitioning DNS settings first, then DHCP, and finally finalizing DNS changes.

BlueCat Integrity is more cost-effective than Infoblox.

I would rate BlueCat Integrity eight out of ten.

The majority of our clients who use BlueCat Integrity are enterprise customers.

Once BlueCat Integrity is deployed there is no maintenance required.

We did not face any challenges when integrating BlueCat Integrity into our client's systems.

Even for organizations hesitant about needing a full-suite DDI management solution, BlueCat Integrity's time-saving features and cost-effectiveness make it a compelling choice. I recommend BlueCat Integrity to others.

It primarily serves as our DNS solution.

The insight into the overall health of our network, particularly in terms of DNS functionality, is positive. This visibility proves invaluable when troubleshooting and resolving issues. It provides a holistic view, including information on DNS and DHCP services, making it a thorough and effective tool for monitoring and managing DNS functionality.

DNS security is safeguarded comprehensively from end to end.

It offers a unified view of our IP address space through a single pane of glass. Whether using IPM or Integrity with DNS, you can easily correlate and match all assigned IPs with the DNS configuration. This integration ensures that each IP address in IPM corresponds to a DNS name, providing comprehensive visibility.

It has been seamlessly integrated with various IT operation manager platforms, including SolarWinds. While it might not be accurate to label the integration with Integrity as direct, it's apt to say that our BlueCat solution is monitored by SolarWinds. Additionally, for internet access, such as reaching domains like Google.com, we rely on Cisco Umbrella.

It helped us in minimizing human errors by facilitating automation through the use of scripts.

The design with BlueCat ensures minimal downtime as it is highly redundant. In the event of a server failure, multiple servers seamlessly handle the traffic, making the occurrence of downtime highly improbable.

It did not contribute to the consolidation of any previously used tools or applications.

It assisted in saving time for other projects.

One of the standout features of BlueCat is its foundation on Linux, making it one of the earliest DNS solutions. This inherent stability, derived from its Linux-based architecture, provides a well-established and reliable platform. Once you become familiar with the technology, managing it becomes straightforward.

It primarily supports DNS high availability failover when the servers share the same subnet. However, it does not offer robust support for high availability failover with different subnets, especially if the servers are located in different data centers and belong to distinct IP networks. In such cases, setting up high availability becomes challenging, often requiring manual failovers.

We have been using it for approximately five months.

There were no stability issues.

It provides good scalability capabilities.

I am satisfied with its customer service and support. I would rate it eight out of ten.

We were using NS-1 previously but decided to switch, primarily because IBM acquired the company, and subsequently, they discontinued the solution.

The initial setup was somewhat challenging, but it wasn't overly difficult.

The deployment process spanned approximately two months. The overall project required four resources, including roles such as design and project management, to complete it.

I am not sure about the exact pricing, but I believe their cost is lower compared to Infoblox.

The previous solution reached its end, leading the vendor to discontinue the service. During the customer review, we evaluated options between BlueCat and Infoblox.

For a medium-sized company, having a DNS solution is essential. Whether it's BlueCat, Infoblox, or another option, it's crucial for smooth operations. While it's technically possible to work with Linux Spine or other solutions like F5 DNS, they are often challenging to manage due to the absence of a graphical user interface. Having a dedicated DNS solution tailored for medium-sized companies, like BlueCat, is indispensable for scalability and efficiency. Before implementing BlueCat, it's advisable to ensure that employees undergo training. You may consider requesting an evaluation license from BlueCat to set up a lab for training resources dedicated to working on the BlueCat DNS solution. Additionally, exploring a POC could be beneficial. Overall, I would rate it nine out of ten.

We use it for IPAM, DNS, DHCP, and cloud solutions.

We've enhanced security with the toolset. It has given us a better, real-time jump on issues that might crop up versus an issue that has already arrived and now we have to deal with it. We can catch it a little bit before it goes off, which is great. Other tools, like antivirus or malware, catch it once the machines are trying to download the packages. With DNS, you catch that as it's trying to attempt to go and ask for the download, so it's a couple of steps before, which makes it to be a lot faster in saving a lot of extra work that would be needed.

It provides a single-pane-of-glass view of our IP address space, which is very important for us. It's an item that can be used across the board for multiple teams—from network to platform teams. It's an easy-to-use portion of the toolset that's out there.

We're using its integration with ServiceNow. It's a great integration. We're expanding on those out-of-the-box tools with which integrations are provided. So, we're able to expand our capabilities. We're looking at other automations as well to expand.

It has helped reduce human error. Prior to BlueCat, which was a long time ago, we used to have spreadsheets and notepads of our records of where DNS is, what's being kept, what's not being kept, which networks are available, and which ones aren't available. I've run into some colleagues in other organizations that still do this today, and I'm surprised because we've had a lot of overlaps. We've had machines being built that are stepping on top of other machines. We've had production outages, whereas now with the IPAM capability and the real-time view into it, all those mistakes are pretty much gone. We don't have any overlap. We don't see any other machines taking over IP space from other machines. That's pretty much gone. It provides a great single source of truth for what's in our infrastructure.

It has helped to reduce downtime. When there are issues, a lot of fingers point back to its DNS. With the toolsets and with what's provided in diagnostics, we're able to prove and provide reliable information to lessen an outage in some areas so that they can start concentrating on items other than DNS. We're able to jump in and reroute and move items around to make things move faster.

It has helped to consolidate tools or applications. We rely on multiple Microsoft solutions, Linux, Unix, and Red Hat. We're able to take all that and have that under one umbrella for DNS. We're now able to streamline that type of configuration.

It has freed up our IT staff for other projects. The resiliency that it provides had me focus on being able to do other work for DNS or other tasks that are assigned to me outside of DNS. If we were looking at it in terms of manpower, it has saved about one manpower's worth of work for a year.

The most valuable piece, which has been a lifesaver, would be the BlueCat DNS resolver. BlueCat Cloud DNS resolver is a tool that takes a look into your cloud's DNS and then reports back everything it finds into BlueCat's DNS Edge solution. The Edge solution has a bunch of nice rules that you can configure to route the DNS traffic. That automation alone is a lifesaver for me for the day-to-day churn of the DNS components that change on an hourly, daily basis.

From the time that I've been using it and the input that I've been having into their engineering, they're very flexible in seeing what the issues are. They're very flexible in working on new changes within the product. I've had great input on issues that we've run into in our world when using their products.

The ease of use is where I got to give a little knock on them. Once you start using the tool, it becomes very easy. It's actually quite easy to use. The problem that I run into is documentation. The documentation could be a little bit richer. Documentation has always been a little pet peeve for me with them.

Sometimes the documentation does not really show real-world applications. Need to get tickets into support to get more details on how an item is supposed to operate or some CLI sequence may be missing in the docs.  

I am hoping to see an improved robust process to mass import/export IPAM data in their next major release.

We've been a customer of BlueCat since about 2013.

It's very stable. We've only run into one issue this past week and a half ago. We had roughly two outages all this time, and it was the second outage. That was due to a bug not in BlueCat software but in the underlying Linux bind. We actually hit it, and we were able to work around it and fix the issue and get moving again. In ten years, there were only two outages, so the system is very stable.

It scales very well. We're able to move and change things on the fly. We're able to bring up, bring down, not lose a beat, and still be in production without issues.

They're hands down fabulous. They're there in a pinch. We use their enterprise solution for support, and they are top-notch. I can't say anything wrong with them. They're there when you need them.

You have to work out a schedule with them. They just don't sit there and wait for Dave Muscat's call. Just put it that way. I have to schedule it with them, but they're there. In some cases, when we have issues where some people contact me with problems, or our customers need to have something resolved, and I'm not hitting it, I put in a ticket. It's a quick and easy process.

They're usually pretty good at responding. They sometimes respond within 15 to 20 minutes. They're sometimes a lot better than what they put out there in their SLA. We're on the phone talking quickly. In our outage situation that we had last week, within minutes, there was already an email with a link in there to jump on a call so we can start working on the issue. I'd rate them an eight out of ten.

In terms of comparing their support with the support for our previous solution, the previous solution that we had was a free Microsoft solution, so there was no support tied to that. That was just us and googling.

Positive

We had a mixture of many products. It was Windows, Sun Solaris, and spreadsheets. 

We used to be part of a division of another company, and we were being sold off into our own company. I happened to raise my hand at a meeting with only a couple of weeks left to go before the actual cutoff date. I asked what we are doing for DNS. I was told that we just put a bunch of machines together to which I said no. You don't just put a bunch of machines together. You have to have a hierarchy of a solution. There was a third-party management company that was managing our separation, and they formed a little group that looked at three different products, and BlueCat won that process.

In terms of the deployment model, we have both environments. We're on-prem with all virtual servers, and we're also in the cloud. It's an Azure cloud, but it's private to us.

Ease of deployment is there once you work out the nuances of the documentation. Once you read between the lines, It goes quite well. Deploying virtual machines is a very easy process. They've really matured in deployments of their DNS Edge solution and patching.

In terms of the deployment duration, technically, we're still deploying after all these years. When we first launched the project, the initial deployment and cutover were in the vicinity of 12 to 18 months because of the sheer amount of data that we needed to migrate. We were working with all the teams. We're in the healthcare field, so there were a lot of HIPAA regulations and time frames based on the contracts we had.

Only I was involved in its deployment. Its original deployment and any subsequent deployment were done by me. I finally got my first person to help me this week.

When it comes to maintenance, I do have a group of three guys in India. They take care of patching, and they take care of the upgrades. They take care of the low-level tickets that come in and get generated in our ServiceNow platform. They handle requests to add or remove a record.

Our outage levels have gone down to almost nothing. We're roughly 99.8% outage free at this point in time since using the product. We've only had two medium-sized outages, and neither one of those outages caused an outage. It has been reliable enough.

I can sleep at night. I haven't said that about any other product I've dealt with, whether it's Microsoft, Linux, Cisco, or anything of that nature. I can sleep at night knowing the type of redundancies and configurations that have been put in place and the collaborative engineering work that we and BlueCat have put together to make things solid for us.

They're competitive. The way they run their model is good. Could it stand some tweaking? Sure. There are some items there. One of the things I looked at in the recent past was their container solutions. You have to pay for licensing to use their containerized platform, but the licensing doesn't include the container licensing itself. I'd love to be able to have one big package per se.

They were flexible with us. We were in a model at the time where we owned the licenses, and as time progressed forward with the product, we're now in a subscription-based model, which makes it easier for us to move the product around the way we need to use it. It has made that easier for us.

I've never been the person who brings numbers into the equation when I'm dealing with the product. So, I don't know about the total cost of ownership, but according to me, it's well worth every dime we pay for it. It has streamlined our business across the board.

We evaluated Men&Mice and Infoblox. BlueCat won that process just for ease of use and ease of installation. We were also not looking at solutions that would sit on top of a Microsoft product at the time.

Make sure you have your data available. You should have your IPAM data and your DNS data. You need to be able to bring it in, so you need to have a mechanism to pull that. You can test the solution, probably in a small VMware environment. It doesn't have to be cloud. It doesn't have to be anything elaborate. If you have a small lab, you can probably throw this together.

To someone at an organization who doesn’t think that they need a full-stack, integrated DDI management solution, I'd say that I don't care how big or how small an organization you are. You need some type of solution to manage your network. You need to have at least some type of IPAM. You need something that's going to keep track of your network space and your DNS space. You need to be able to look at it at a glance and be able to manage those systems and make changes on the fly. Whether you're a small school or a small business, you need to have something.

Overall, I'd rate it a nine out of ten. The reason why I rate it a nine is the documentation. I've always had problems with their documentation.

We use BlueCat Integrity to have visibility into our address management.

BlueCat Integrity is fairly straightforward. I have been using it myself for quite a long time. The actual user interface is a little dated, but that is being addressed in the upcoming release.

BlueCat Integrity provides a single-pane-of-glass view of our IP address space, which is important for our organization to see what is being utilized.

For the six years we have been using BlueCat Integrity, we have begun to transition from Microsoft to BlueCat DHCP and DNS. The ability to easily view our options and zones is a significant improvement over our previous approach. The user interface has improved over time, but it is still somewhat dated. A major UI overhaul is planned for release 10, which is scheduled for release next spring.

BlueCat Integrity can help reduce human error by pushing changes to multiple places with only one human input, reducing the likelihood of errors. Compared to our previous solution, BlueCat has reduced human errors by 25 percent.

BlueCat Integrity has not really helped us consolidate any tools. We were already using one Microsoft tool, and now we are using one BlueCat tool, with the advantage of only having to use one interface with BlueCat Integrity versus multiple with Microsoft.

BlueCat Integrity is a solid product. It does not have flashy features, but it is reliable and we have few problems with it. BlueCat does a good job of keeping the product up-to-date with security patches and updates. BlueCat Integrity provides us with flexibility and visibility that we did not have before.

The most important improvement is that it would be nice to have more built-in tools for bulk updates and bulk changes. I understand that there are APIs for this, but that requires coding skills. I am no longer a coder, so it would be helpful to have built-in tools for imports and other tasks.

The UI is outdated and needs a modern refresh.

The RFC is over 25 years old, and some record types have become obsolete. I would like newer DNS record types, even if they are not part of the RFC.

I have been using BlueCat Integrity for six years.

We originally used Microsoft for DHCP, DNS, and IP address management. We have since migrated to BlueCat Integrity for better visibility into our address management. Multiple people are able to manage using BlueCat Integrity.

The initial deployment was straightforward. The basic deployment took one month, but the full deployment with the server took around six months and was completed by two people.

Originally, we compared BlueCat Integrity to other products. It was not the cheapest nor the most expensive solution, but it was among the more expensive ones. Overall, I would say that it is priced fairly, though perhaps a bit on the high side.

I would rate BlueCat Integrity eight out of ten.

BlueCat Integrity is deployed in our corporate environment across multiple locations around the world.