DNS Automation:  Managing DNS Options and Roles

Harmonizing DNS/DHCP options and server roles across multiple levels of IP address management can be a time-consuming task.

Viewing these settings throughout your database and dealing with conflicts is usually a two step process.  First, administrators have to navigate through configurations, blocks, networks, zones, or views to locate individual options.  Only then can they edit the value or move its location and level of inheritance.  It wasn’t possible to automatically find these options and roles, let alone manage them from a single place….until now.

Automated management of DNS roles and options

Enter the latest automation workflow from BlueCat.  Leveraging the power of BlueCat’s intelligent automation platform, this new workflow allows users to make bulk changes to DNS/DHCP options and server roles without having to individually navigate through the hierarchy and set them in the BlueCat Address Manager.  The workflow automates the search from the options point of view, displaying all of its associated locations and values.  This allows users to make bulk changes and consolidate inheritances all in one place.

Administrators save time and effort by managing and modifying numerous options on multiple devices at the same time.  The workflow makes it easier to search and find where options are used and see where the inconsistencies exist so that the options can be deployed more efficiently.

The workflow can also help to minimize the number of options assigned by allowing administrators to cut and paste options and their values, thus consolidating inheritance of values at a higher level.

How it works

The workflow gathers values and locations on options and roles from across a configuration and puts it into a tree structure with the options or server roles at the root.  Child to each option is a list of values currently assigned followed by their respective locations.

From this workflow, you can perform the following tasks:

You can search by the option or role name or value, and it will highlight where those names are located in the tree or where those values are assigned.

You can navigate to a particular option and if it is a custom option, change its name.

You can navigate to a default or custom option and add, modify, delete its value or cut and paste it to a new location.

You can see all of the server roles currently assigned within a configuration, add additional roles, delete them, or change their associations within the hierarchy.

Ready to start managing options and roles from a single view?  Download the workflow from our BlueCat Labs GitHub repository today.