BlueCat Integrity vs Infoblox DDI comparison

BlueCat and Infoblox are both solutions in the Managed DNS category. BlueCat is ranked #5 with an average rating of 8.9, while Infoblox is ranked #7 with an average rating of 8.8. BlueCat holds a 5.2% mindshare in MDP, compared to Infoblox’s 7.1% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of BlueCat users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Infoblox users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 4, 2024

BlueCat Integrity and Infoblox DDI compete in the network management solutions market. BlueCat Integrity appears to have the upper hand with its competitive pricing and robust automation features, particularly noted for its high ROI and customer satisfaction.

Features: BlueCat Integrity offers notable automation and integration capabilities with extensive APIs, scalability, and cloud infrastructure. It provides important DNS security and is a reliable tool for managing essential network services. Infoblox DDI emphasizes IPAM tools and DNS security, incorporating RADIUS and TACACS+ support, and is designed to excel in secured environments. It integrates efficiently with existing DNS infrastructures.

Room for Improvement: BlueCat Integrity could benefit from enhanced multi-factor authentication and adherence to NTP standards. Improvements are needed in reporting and third-party tool integrations like ServiceNow, along with streamlined bulk IPAM data management. Infoblox DDI's setup process, pricing for SMBs, and handling of URL recategorization require attention. Integration improvements with tools like Ansible and Terraform are also needed.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: BlueCat Integrity provides flexible deployment options across on-premises, hybrid, and public cloud environments with generally responsive and knowledgeable support. It receives high praise for personalized support, specifically in complex scenarios and compliance with government standards. Infoblox DDI can be deployed in on-premises and hybrid cloud settings but encounters criticism over response times in support.

Pricing and ROI: BlueCat Integrity boasts a competitive pricing model, offering both perpetual licenses and subscriptions. It’s seen as cost-effective when compared to Infoblox, with significant ROI due to extensive automation and minimal downtime. Infoblox DDI is commonly perceived as expensive, especially for SMBs, with extra costs for additional features. It struggles to match BlueCat's pricing flexibility and long-term financial benefits.

To learn more, read our detailed BlueCat Integrity vs. Infoblox DDI Report (Updated: November 2024).

Buyer's Guide

BlueCat Integrity vs. Infoblox DDI

November 2024

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Categories and Ranking

IBM NS1 Connect

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2024, in the Managed DNS category, the mindshare of IBM NS1 Connect is 2.7%, down from 3.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of BlueCat Integrity is 5.2%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Infoblox DDI is 7.1%, up from 1.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Managed DNS

Featured Reviews

Michael Wills

Senior Network Systems Engineer at McKesson

Balances cost and functionality, speeds up provisioning, and reduces the DNS maintenance work drastically

The provisioning is great. They have an API service that is simple to use and very quick. The changes that we make are replicated worldwide in a matter of usually milliseconds, sometimes seconds. They are done very rapidly. That's something that's obviously priceless when we're dealing with things like DNS. It is great as an API-first platform for DNS and application traffic management. It is very simple to use. It allows us to rapidly provision and deprovision things. We are all around happy with the solution. From a metrics standpoint, the solution that we came from had no metrics. So, it has been great. Their service team is excellent in taking the time to provide reports for both growth and strategic planning. It has been great.

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Ian Slade

Sr. Manager Network Engineering and Architecture at SAIC

It improves our security by providing a single source of IP address usage and contact information

As a defense contractor, we must meet many compliance standards regarding logging, configuration, and administrative access. BlueCat is one of the few products that combines all the compliance components in a secure, reliable solution. Integrity requires some technological expertise and a full-time employee to run the system. It is one of several technologies that my group manages, but maintenance requires minimal effort. Upgrading and deploying the solution is a bigger task, but it is easy to maintain once it is running. BlueCat Integrity offers a single pane of glass view for our IP address space. From the GUI interface, you can see all the IP addresses and roll them up to the colored views of usage and availability. That capability is critical because we have multiple groups that are off on their own in a cloud environment. We can avoid IP address overlap by checking that as we add different projects. While I've worked at this company, we've had more than 50 acquisitions. As we acquire these companies, some IP addresses may overlap. We can integrate those, see the spaces, and adjust.

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Utpal Sinha

Sr Network Engineer at Momentive

An excellent tool that provides an overall centralized view of everything in an environment, majorly the security part

The three major features of Infoblox DDI are very good. Artificial intelligence is one of the areas in the solution where there are some shortcomings. When dealing with URLs, Infoblox needs a good team that takes care of the recategorizations. Zscaler is good since it can recategorize the website. Every day, millions of websites are newly launched, which may or may not be malicious. Malicious websites will get blocked if a company goes for recategorization. If the recategorization part is not taken care of properly, with millions of websites being launched every day, then the malicious websites will not get blocked. Zscaler has a good team to take care of the recategorization part within twenty-four hours, while Infoblox does not have such a team. Symantec and Palo Alto have good teams to take care of the recategorization part, while Infoblox does not have such types of teams. The aforementioned area can be considered for improvement in the solution. The recategorization part takes longer with Infoblox DDI compared to other companies like Symantec, Zscaler, and Palo Alto.

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Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"Monitoring is really important for us. We really care about reliability, and we want to make sure that we can remove some points of presence in our sector and in our edge network really fast when we experience any problems. So, monitoring that NS1 provides for DNS is really important for us."

"It massively speeds things up. Today, we allow developers to deploy services and have externally facing DNS scrapers that are created automatically without the addition of human intervention."

"We find that the low latency access to DNS queries has a direct effect on the customer experience. Visiting a site, whether it's an AdTech-based solution or marketing tech, the fact that whatever we're rendering on a page can be rendered better than the industry standard, in terms of time, ensures a better user experience."

"The fact that it's an API-first platform for DNS and application traffic management is one of the reasons we looked into NS1. We use it for a lot of automation and metrics gathering and it's been great."

"The provisioning is great. They have an API service that is simple to use and very quick. The changes that we make are replicated worldwide in a matter of usually milliseconds, sometimes seconds. They are done very rapidly. That's something that's obviously priceless when we're dealing with things like DNS."

"Everything we download into our observability platform so that we can also track any changes in traffic behavior or things like that is also something that we use quite a lot. I'd say traffic management, the speed of updates, and observability are the top three things that we use."

"We leverage two things from Managed DNS that we couldn't do with any other solution. One is their filter chain technology, which allows us to shift some of the intelligence we need for the traffic steering to the DNS. The second one is data sources, which enables us to manipulate multiple records simultaneously using NS1's internal message DOS. In our case, we are trying to direct the traffic in over 150,000 different NS1 records to an arbitrary set of repeating responses."

"One of the features that is non-standard and that is very useful is the filtered DNS. We have set up our external VPN, which is what all our employees connect through, to use this feature. It's geolocation-aware. In that way, for India we set it up so that these are the servers that should be supporting things, and in the UK these servers, in the U.S. these servers, and in Sweden these ones."

More IBM NS1 Connect pros

"BlueCat saved us money in terms of a life-and-death scenario and the stress factors that surround that in a healthcare environment. We generally don't have downtime in our DATP environments anymore. The clinics and the hospitals can continue to operate and not be in that position to be down."

"BlueCat Integrity provides us with flexibility and visibility that we did not have before."

"BlueCat Integrity's scalability and user-friendliness are the most valuable features."

"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."

"The most significant advantage of BlueCat is its foundation on open-source software, specifically BIND and ISC DHCP."

"As a defense contractor, we must meet many compliance standards regarding logging, configuration, and administrative access. BlueCat is one of the few products that combines all the compliance components in a secure, reliable solution."

"One of the better things about Integrity is that the underlying code it uses is an ISC DNS and DHCP. It's not like some of the other vendors that have created their own version of DNS."

"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."

More BlueCat Integrity pros

"The most valuable feature of Infoblox DDI is its IP Address Management (IPAM) tool. This tool allows for the effective management of IP addresses and provides the capability to detect duplicates, hence its moniker "discovery." Another feature that I find particularly useful is the integration of DNS, which can be seamlessly integrated with your existing primary DNS server, making the overall experience much more seamless and efficient."

"The UI is quite user-friendly and the support is available 24/7."

"Infoblox is a proactive DNS system that enhances organizational security by blocking and triggering alerts for malicious or suspicious URLs."

"One of the benefits of implementing Infoblox DDI is that it supports both RADIUS and TACACS+."

"Infoblox DDI prioritizes DNS security, which is crucial for the security department."

"It offers an easy initial setup."

"Infoblox has more technology patents than any of its competitors."

"The UI is quite user-friendly and the support is available 24/7."

More Infoblox DDI pros

Cons

"We use the geo load balancing functionality and there are a couple of things that are helpful there. But the language itself is something we had to get used to a little bit. Some of my folks made a few mistakes in rolling out the Filter Chain...The Filter Chain setup is a bit hard to grasp at first. It would also be nice to have a way to simulate changes in addition to staging."

"We use our client in our infrastructure to communicate with NS1. This client is a bit complex in the way that it is set up. NS1 has their own client solution that you can deploy into your platform to do this, but even that is a bit complex. So, I would like a very simple, thin, light API agent that we can deploy into our platform to communicate with NS1. That would be welcome."

"We would really like them to become a DNS registrar."

"I would love to see improvement in the testing capabilities they provide. They have a simulate-filter feature so that you can simulate how your traffic would flow, based on their Filter Chains. I believe that was shut off for quite some time. Having that as a way to test our load-balanced CDN structure would be fantastic."

"When we first deployed, we flipped the switch, and it didn't work as well as we expected. It wasn't a complete outage, but we had issues in some places with some customers. The NS1 team went out of their way to resolve it on Thanksgiving. We have a post about it on our blog. We called it "Black Thursday.""

"The reporting metrics are great from an API standpoint, but it would be a little bit nicer if there was some type of dashboard around that. There should also be some type of reporting that's more executive-level focused."

"We care about monitoring and telemetry work, and NS1 provides a pretty good system for monitoring. We can monitor our endpoints and points of presence around the world. If there are any issues, we can easily remove them from our network, but this area needs some improvement because it is not always reliable in NS1. In the past, we had a number of false-positive cases when the monitoring system told us about some problems in our infrastructure that were not true. NS1 is improving the system, and we are constantly talking about this with them. I know that they are releasing a new version of their monitoring system, which is really important for us, but this is a different area where we would expect them to improve."

"There could maybe be additional ways to manage traffic. There are no major improvements we're looking for. It's a very complete solution."

More IBM NS1 Connect cons

"One crucial area for development is IPv6 support."

"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."

"While the product is IPAM, DNS, and DHCP, it does provide NTP functionality, but one of the things that they have yet to correct or catch up with is NTP authentication. There are new standards being pushed out and they are lagging a little bit in supporting them."

"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."

"During our testing phase, we encountered some issues with Active Directory and DNS reverse lookups."

"XHA has some very unusual requirements. If you're running just two BlueCat appliances for a given area of responsibility, then in VMware, if they land on the same VM host, you can run into challenges with XHA, which we are learning."

"BlueCat Integrity can improve by increasing the amount of updates it releases."

"The technical support is slow and has room for improvement."

More BlueCat Integrity cons

"The pricing is quite expensive, which is why I recommend it for medium and large enterprises and not for small businesses."

"Every vendor or organization cannot purchase Infoblox DDI because of some license issues."

"They need to reconsider their pricing for their SMB customers. It is a hurdle for them to manage the price."

"Regarding an upcoming release of Infoblox DDI, I would like to see an improvement in the existing integration with Ansible. Currently, the integration is not up to par and requires further enhancements, particularly in Ansible version 2.5. Additionally, the GUI is slow, it could be improved."

"The solution is expensive."

"Infoblox encounters some glitches, making it not entirely super stable."

"There are some bugs and glitches that need attention."

"It would be helpful if we can log in and click on the server, and have the CLI pop up directly instead of using third-party software, like PuTTY, to log in."

More Infoblox DDI cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The cost of this product is one of the reasons that we chose it."

"NS1's pricing is much more aggressive than its competitors in the market and you get more value out of what you pay for it."

"We pay about $30,000 a month. We used to pay about $20,000 with Dyn every month, for lower volume than we're doing right now, but it had none of the features that we have available with NS1, so it was worth it for us. It seems competitive for us, given that we're doing 4.5 billion requests."

"Everything can always be cheaper, but as it is today the pricing is fair."

"From a cost standpoint, it's certainly not the most expensive out there, and it's also not the cheapest, but it does well to balance the cost and the functionality/reliability."

"Compared to other solutions, BlueCat Integrity offers a competitive price."

"BlueCat Integrity is more cost-effective than Infoblox."

"BlueCat Integrity's pricing is reasonable within the market."

"Overall, it's a decent price for the product. There are other vendors that have support models and costs that are, sometimes, double what Bluecat charges."

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

"BlueCat Integrity is affordable."

"Adaptive DNS's price depends on your network ranges, the services you want, and the level of support you require."

"BlueCat Integrity meets our expectations and aligns with our budget forecast."

More BlueCat Integrity pricing and cost advice

"I would say the pricing falls between average and expensive. It's not a cheap product."

"The license of the solution is expensive, not including the hardware."

"Infoblox DDI is an expensive product."

"Infoblox's subscription includes support."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Comms Service Provider

10%

University

Computer Software Company

17%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

Financial Services Firm

15%

Computer Software Company

12%

Government

12%

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about NS1 Managed DNS?

For starters, Managed DNS from NS1 is an easy way to get the job done. Whether you're a novice or a pro, Managed DNS ...

See all answers

What do you like most about BlueCat Adaptive DNS?

This inherent stability, derived from its Linux-based architecture, provides a well-established and reliable platform.

See all answers

What needs improvement with BlueCat Adaptive DNS?

The user interface could be improved, as the implementation of BlueCat can be complicated and requires personnel with...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for BlueCat Adaptive DNS?

We have been a partner of BlueCat for two years now, and we are responsible for deploying the solution over the Middl...

See all answers

What do you like most about Infoblox DDI?

Infoblox DDI is a good tool if you want to centralize everything in your environment...It is a stable solution.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Infoblox DDI?

We could have a CLI access directly in the UI. It would be helpful if we can log in and click on the server, and have...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Infoblox DDI?

I am using Infoblox primarily for DNS, ITAM solutions along with DHCP. We also have some servers deployed in the clou...

See all answers

Comparisons

Cloudflare vs IBM NS1 Connect

Compared 41% of the time

Akamai Edge DNS vs IBM NS1 Connect

Compared 19% of the time

Amazon Route 53 vs IBM NS1 Connect

Compared 18% of the time

Neustar UltraDNS vs IBM NS1 Connect

Compared 6% of the time

Cisco Umbrella vs IBM NS1 Connect

Compared 5% of the time

More IBM NS1 Connect Competitors

Infoblox IPAM vs BlueCat Integrity

Compared 23% of the time

SolarWinds IPAM vs BlueCat Integrity

Compared 8% of the time

Cloudflare vs BlueCat Integrity

Compared 5% of the time

Micetro vs BlueCat Integrity

Compared 5% of the time

Azure DNS vs BlueCat Integrity

Compared 3% of the time

More BlueCat Integrity Competitors

Cloudflare vs Infoblox DDI

Compared 19% of the time

VitalQIP vs Infoblox DDI

Compared 12% of the time

Azure DNS vs Infoblox DDI

Compared 11% of the time

Cisco Prime Network Registrar vs Infoblox DDI

Compared 6% of the time

Google Cloud DNS vs Infoblox DDI

Compared 2% of the time

More Infoblox DDI Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IBM NS1 Connect

December 2024

Download IBM NS1 Connect product report

Buyer's Guide

BlueCat Integrity

December 2024

Download BlueCat Integrity product report

Buyer's Guide

Infoblox DDI

December 2024

Download Infoblox DDI product report

Also Known As

NS1 Managed DNS, NS1

BlueCat Adaptive DNS, BlueCat Automation Manager, BlueCat DDI

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IBM

BlueCat

Infoblox

Overview

Why

In a 24/7 world, customers demand applications, websites, and content that load instantly and are always on. When those connections are unreliable or slow, businesses don’t meet customer expectations, causing customers to leave. When that occurs, revenue may suffer.

What

IBM NS1 Connect delivers the high-performance, reliable, secure network connectivity that businesses need to meet increasingly sophisticated customer expectations. Leveraging a global network with a 100% uptime SLA, IBM has the capacity and scale to meet the needs of any business. IBM NS1 Connect takes performance to the next level, powering the sophisticated needs of enterprises with complex network infrastructures.

How

IBM NS1 Connect provides network connectivity solutions that give networking teams the visibility, control and automation needed to help ensure your business stays online by steering traffic to the ideal network connections for any given moment. IBM NS1 Connect also enables IT teams to identify network performance anomalies through deep insights into DNS data flows, allowing them to identify configuration problems or network issues that affect performance so they can quickly resolve them.

Details

IBM NS1 Connect is a managed service that provides authoritative, premium DNS and advanced, customizable traffic steering that improves application performance and network resilience. Revenue-generating applications require authoritative DNS resolution to keep critical applications and websites online. Unless your DNS infrastructure is always-on and resilient, network reliability and user experience will suffer, your network reliability may suffer, resulting in poor user experiences if revenue-generating critical applications and websites are not online. IBM NS1 Connect’s always-on, API-first architecture provides fast, secure connections to users anywhere in the world with premium DNS and advanced, customizable traffic steering. It also enables your IT teams to efficiently monitor networks, deploy changes and conduct routine maintenance.

IBM NS1 Connect uses the Domain Name System (DNS) to ensure that websites and applications are:

Online, all the time: Global network with 100% uptime SLA and DDoS protection
Fast: Top tier response and propagation times, custom traffic steering to optimize connections
Cheaper to run: Far less expensive than self-hosting
Automation friendly: API-first platform with Ansible/Terraform integrations and support for Pliant rapid network automation
Easier to troubleshoot: Unique DNS data insights offering

Designed for enterprises looking to optimize their DNS performance, IBM NS1 Connect is a managed service delivering authoritative DNS and advanced traffic steering that improves application performance and network resilience and provides fast, secure connections to users anywhere in the world. NS1 Connect streamlines DNS management by automating both simple and complex DNS configuration tasks via API and preconfigured integrations, so you can spend more time on higher-value work.

IBM NS1 Connect is delivered through our unified delivery platform. The cloud-based platform gives networking teams the visibility, control and automation needed to help ensure your business stays online by steering traffic to the ideal network connections for any given moment. IBM NS1 Connect solutions also enable IT teams to identify network performance anomalies through deep insights into DNS data flows, allowing them to identify configuration problems or network issues that affect performance so they can quickly resolve them.

For enterprises looking to further optimize DNS performance, IBM NS1 Connect offers rich DNS data analytics to streamline the identification of the root cause of anomalies within traffic.

IBM NS1 Connect Features

Global anycast DNS network: Enjoy fast connections to consumers around the globe through an anycast network with 26 points of presence (PoPs).
100% uptime SLA on DNS resolution: Maximize uptime and revenue generation with resilient, always-on, authoritative DNS.
API-first architecture: Integrate and automate workflows with NS1 Connect's well-documented API; every line of code starts as an API call, all functionality is available through the API.
Real-time user monitoring (RUM)-based traffic steering: Uses real-time intelligence on network performance and availability to direct DNS connections to the best available application resource; the widest range of filter options and data sources in the industry, not data that is extrapolated from sampling; the most flexible, granular controls for your network.
Built-in resilience: Add a single-tenant, redundant DNS layer and manage it from a single control plane as your primary DNS.
Managed DNS for China: Improve performance for the Chinese mainland by segmenting traffic with NS1 Connect’s Managed DNS for China.
DNS insights: Get a better understanding of DNS traffic patterns by mining your DNS data to identify security issues, misconfigurations and performance issues.
DDoS protection: Cap your query-based spending with protection against unexpected surges in traffic from distributed denial-of-service attacks.
Uptime monitor: Quickly identify issues and automatically adjust DNS traffic steering configurations with native health check alerts.
DevOps tool integrations: Preconfigured integrations with leading DevOps tools including Ansible and Terraform to help automate routine maintenance, manage data sources and feeds.
Propagation speed: fastest propagation in the industry, measured in seconds not minutes; worldwide propagation in under five seconds.
Independence: neutral arbiter between infrastructure services (CDNs, clouds).

IBM NS1 Connect helps enterprises modernize and optimize networking infrastructure to provide customers with faster connections to websites, applications, services and content.

BlueCat Integrity is a comprehensive DNS security solution that provides visibility and control over all DNS traffic on your network. It offers real-time threat detection and response, as well as policy enforcement to ensure compliance with security standards. With its advanced analytics and reporting capabilities, Integrity enables you to identify and mitigate security risks before they can cause damage. It also integrates with other security tools to provide a complete security ecosystem. Whether you're a small business or a large enterprise, BlueCat Integrity can help you protect your network from DNS-based attacks and ensure the integrity of your DNS infrastructure.

Network landscapes are rapidly evolving, driven by trends in hybrid and multi-cloud transformation, the IoT and distributed workforces. Infoblox is uniquely able to support organizations in this challenging environment because our solutions support DNS, DHCP and IP address management. These are the critical network services collectively known as DDI that make all network interactions possible.

Sample Customers

Avast Software, Bloomberg L.P., BBC, Carfax, CNBC LLC, Deloitte Consulting LLP, Disney Streaming, Dropbox, EBAY Inc, Gannett Media Corp, Salesforce, Wayfair, Workday

Computer Sciences Corporation

Adobe, Aflac, UCSD, Airbus, Amgen, Apple

Buyer's Guide

BlueCat Integrity vs. Infoblox DDI

November 2024

Free Report: BlueCat Integrity vs. Infoblox DDI

Find out what your peers are saying about BlueCat Integrity vs. Infoblox DDI and other solutions. Updated: November 2024.

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