Enterprise Class DNS

[David Nolan]

--On Wednesday, March 22, 2006 15:08:49 -0800 bobbarber99 at yahoo.com wrote:

> I am working with a company that has implemented Lucent's QIP product.
> This is apparently a
> repackaging of DNS, DHCP, and so forth with a database backend to drive
> it all and some kind
> of frontend tools to manage it.
>
> I cannot seem to find much info on QIP.  The Lucent website mentions it
> last in the late 1990s.
> So ... I have a few questions:
>
> 1) Is this a current product?
>
> 2) Is there an open source equivalent replacement suite of tools
> bundled together this way?
>
> 3) When bind is deployed in really large corporate settings, what tools
> do you all recommend
>     for managing its configuration databases?
>

I'll put in a plug here for Carnegie Mellon's NetReg (*).  NetReg is a DNS 
& DHCP management system (and much more) that we wrote in house to replace 
our previous database. We manage DNS & DHCP for 50K machines, and NetReg 
does it all. It is available under an OSS license and is in use at several 
other locations. NetReg provides a self service web interface with flexible 
permissions, privilege delegation, IP address space management, DNS record 
validation, and more.  For information visit http://www.net.cmu.edu/netreg

As the current primary developer of the system I'm a bit biased, but I 
think its a great system. It has a steep learning curve, and the 
documentation leaves something to be desired (like a tech writer...), but 
once you hit a certain scale the benefits outway the cost. On the site 
linked above you'll find a working demo with some base data you can 
experiment with, but obviously the full power of the system isn't utilized 
until you have lots of data and can see the resulting zones & config files.

There is an active mailing list. Feel free to join it and ask questions. 
https://lists.andrew.cmu.edu/mailman/listinfo/netreg-users

*: Not to be confused with Southwestern University's NetReg, which is a 
completely different system with similar purpose, developed in parallel 
around the same time.


-David Nolan
 Network Software Designer
 Computing Services
 Carnegie Mellon University