Infoblox Appliances Provide Essential Connectivity for Hofstra University and Presidential Debate

SANTA CLARA, CA--(Marketwire - May 11, 2009) - Infoblox Inc. today announced that Hofstra University, located in Long Island, New York, has deployed Infoblox appliances for highly reliable delivery of core network services, including internal and external domain name resolution (DNS), and IP address assignment and management (DHCP/IPAM). Additionally, Infoblox appliances were used in a separate, temporary network designed specifically for the October 15, 2008 presidential debate between Senator (now President) Barack Obama and Senator John McCain.

"The presidential debate was unlike any IT project we have ever been a part of," said Helen Latimer, director for networking and telecommunications at Hofstra University, who was responsible for the debate network design and deployment. "Hofstra has hosted former presidents and heads of state, but the logistics around a presidential debate are unique and very specific. We had to be sure that the equipment for this network would be robust, secure and highly available. Luckily for us, the decision to migrate to the Infoblox appliances had been made a few months earlier so, naturally, we felt confident using the boxes for the debate."

Prior to being selected as one of the hosts for the 2008 presidential debate, Hofstra's Network and Telecommunications department made a decision to move their core network services infrastructure from a server-based platform to the hardened, purpose-built Infoblox appliances. The move was an easy decision as Hofstra's IT staff knew that the Infoblox appliance-based solution would provide better security, automation, disaster recovery and visibility.

In February 2008, Hofstra began the evaluation process to replace their legacy equipment. They evaluated three vendors' solutions, including Infoblox. In June 2008, Infoblox was selected for the deployment. In all, nine Infoblox appliances including a combination of Infoblox-1050 and -550 platforms were purchased and deployed for the school network. The University's two data centers are located on opposite sides of the campus, making Infoblox's grid configuration a perfect solution for resiliency and disaster recovery.

And, Infoblox's Anycast feature was extremely important to Hofstra in the selection process. Because the University has multiple data centers, they can now "advertise" a single IP address for DNS services that are served by multiple physical devices. The IP address is advertised via the OSPF routing protocol and the DNS service is highly available. This provides global load distribution and automatically routes queries away from appliances that are out of service.

In spring 2008, the University began building out the network for the presidential debate. It was "built up to be torn down," used for only 12 hours and designed to support 1,500 live ports, 1,500 wireless connections -- in all 3,000 concurrent users.

In addition to routers, switches and services that were installed in the summer of '08, Hofstra needed a high availability configuration for the debate network serving only DNS/DHCP. This was to be used for both Republican and Democratic parties, journalists and accompanying staff members for real-time Internet access.

For this purpose, the University purchased two Infoblox-1050 core network services appliance platforms, which are designed to serve small- and medium-sized enterprises and branch office applications. Hofstra linked the appliances together taking advantage of Infoblox's unique grid technology that offers increased resiliency and management advantages. And, to facilitate IP address management for all the parties on the network for the debate, the University's IT department leveraged Infoblox's built in IPAM capabilities.

Latimer concluded, "Not surprising, once the network was live and the IT department brought Internet services up, the Infoblox appliances worked seamlessly and helped us orchestrate the debate flawlessly."

For more information about Infoblox products, visit: http://www.infoblox.com/products/.

About Infoblox

Infoblox delivers highly reliable and manageable platforms for core network services like domain name resolution (DNS), IP address assignment (DHCP), IP address management (IPAM) and more. Infoblox solutions -- essential for the move from static networks to dynamic infrastructure and applications -- are used by over 2,700 organizations worldwide, including over 100 of the Fortune 500. The company is headquartered in Santa Clara, Calif., and operates in more than 30 countries.

Contact Information: Media Contact: Jennifer Jasper Infoblox 408.625.4309