We began the appliance's setup sans manual, and it took us a little while to get this box to answer queries. We had to configure the network portion before we could add any zones. But anyone following the setup guide should have no problem getting up and running. Total setup time was a bit less than 10 minutes. DNS One could use better setup wizards, but compared with traditional DNS solutions, its installation was a dream.
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The client interface needs improvement. Usability is a problem: The browser-based client takes up a lot of screen, and the display is cluttered. It was difficult to view and manage large zones. A call to Infoblox's very good tech support helped us modify settings to get more information on our screen. They reduced the number of hosts pulled in by default to help the Java code perform faster. Despite this problem, the client did provide adequate wizards and tools for setting up initial configurations, importing existing DNS data, and setting up and calculating sub-networking structures. We did miss the extensive error-checking capabilities that Adonis offers. DNS One has simple system-reporting features, but it provides decent raw exports to play with and solid DNS query data.
Infoblox provides a clone feature to copy one appliance configuration to another. We tried this with the test appliances from Infoblox and it worked well. One minor note: The backup utility is a traditional PERL script. We'd like to see this moved to the GUI as in the DNSBox300.
All three appliances provide a standard autoupdate feature to check for and install patches and updates. Both Adonis and BlueCat allow automatic or manual updates, but ApplianSys requires an admin to kick off theirs. Our first attempt at updating locked the DNS One, forcing a hard restart. However, we were unable to repeat the lockup over our weeks of testing, and autoupdate worked fine after our initial mishap. We did not experience any difficulties with the other two appliances' update features.
Security for DNS One is password-based. The appliance relies on a secure HTTPS browser connection for configuration. All unused ports are unavailable, and all zone transfers are disabled by default. CERT (Computer Emergency Response Team) advisories are monitored by Infoblox, and the DNS One automatically pulls down patches from its site as they become available.
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