PRODUCT BULLETIN NO. 2516
PRODUCT OVERVIEW
The Cisco CNS Network Registrar® provides IP address-management provisioning with highly scalable and reliable Domain Name System (DNS), Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP), and Trivial File Transfer Protocol (TFTP) services to help enable efficient and effective provisioning of network devices and services. Its rich and extensible feature sets easily distinguish Cisco® CNS Network Registrar from DHCP and DNS servers packaged with a commercial operating system. Cisco CNS Network Registrar can help reduce operational costs with the central-management capability, which simplifies administrative tasks and reduces tedious and error-prone operations associated with network and device configuration.
The Cisco CNS Network Registrar implements a complete DNS, DHCP, and TFTP server, and provides both graphically based and scriptable command-line interface (CLI) administrative functions to help customers configure, automate, and simplify IP networking services. It supports business-critical tasks such as client configuration and provisioning for numerous devices and service models for both service provider and enterprise customers. Its ability to interoperate with Microsoft-based client devices and Active Directory allows customers to use the Cisco CNS Network Registrar in a complementary role with the basic Microsoft DHCP and DNS servers.
The Cisco CNS Network Registrar automates common tasks such as IP address assignment and management, DHCP and client policy definition and distribution, and day-to-day server maintenance to simplify IP network configuration and administration. Features such as the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) directory interface facilitate integration of DNS and DHCP services with other network-management and client- or service-provisioning applications. Performance-optimized functions provide fast setup and task execution, and an availability-tuned architecture helps to ensure reliable and consistent client-services delivery.
NEW FEATURES
New features in Cisco CNS Network Registrar 6.1 include the following:
· The regional cluster provides central-management capability in Cisco CNS Network Registrar. The regional cluster serves as the aggregate management server for up to 100 local clusters, each of which is a collection of DNS, DHCP, and TFTP servers deployed in the network. With regional cluster, the administrator can configure and control the local clusters from a centralized location, thus facilitating coordination of local cluster management across multiple network domains to provide a consistent and unified IP address policy implementation.
· Address-space management simplifies the task of managing address blocks and can be exercised from the regional cluster and is a feature in the regional cluster. An administrator can break an address block into small units and push the smaller blocks to a local cluster. Similarly, the administrator can also consolidate address blocks in the local cluster under their parent to provide a unified view of the address space. Flexible reporting capability allows administrators, from the regional cluster, to collect subnet usage and lease history information stored in local clusters deployed in the network, thus making the task of collecting usage data simple and virtually effortless. Without an automated solution, the complexity of managing address blocks can be high and the task can be tedious and time-consuming.
· Cluster management allows central management of address space and global protocol server configuration, such as policies, client classes, and scope templates. With this capability, an administrator can create and manage a list of local clusters using the Web user interface on the regional cluster. To further ease the administrative task, the administrator can centrally manage the local clusters, for example creating, pulling, and pushing VPNs and managing DHCP client classes, scope templates and policies, failover pairs, and zone distribution. Through the Web interface, the administrator can also pull subnet usage and IP lease history data from the local clusters. The Single Sign-On feature allows the administrator to traverse the local clusters without reauthentication.
· The Router Interface Configuration (RIC) server manages the router interfaces on Cisco uBR7246VXR Universal Broadband Router and Cisco uBR10012 Universal Broadband Router. An administrator can view, retrieve, and modify the router description; address of the primary subnet on the interface; address of the secondary subnet on the interface; IP helper; and address of cable helper, owner, and region where the router is deployed. As changes are made to the router over time, the RIC server will synchronize with the router to incorporate these changes. Communication to the router can be done via Telnet or Secure Shell (SSH) Protocol. With the RIC server, Cisco CNS Network Registrar delivers a centralized-management approach to help administrators achieve high productivity through integrated, systemic manageability.
· Users now have the option to have leases allocated by priority or by first available. With priority allocation, each scope is assigned a priority and leases are handed out from scopes with the higher priority until the addresses in all the scopes are exhausted. If first available is selected, Cisco CNS Network Registrar hands out the address that is first available. The two new DHCP-allocation options give the administrator the flexibility to implement a more deterministic address-allocation strategy.
· The IP lease-history feature has been enhanced in Cisco CNS Network Registrar 6.1 to significantly improve server performance when this feature is enabled. This feature intelligently provides an audit mechanism in Cisco CNS Network Registrar while delivering the high performance and scalability required for handling large networks.
· To continue support for securing data and operations, Cisco CNS Network Registrar 6.1 allows users to restrict DNS zone transfers based on Transaction Signature. With Transaction Signature enabled, users can verify dynamic DNS-update and zone-transfer requests and responses to come from an authorized source.
· To prevent unauthorized query, the restricted-query ACLs feature allows the administrator to constraint clients to querying only certain servers based on the source IP address or source network address.
· Several counters are added in Cisco CNS Network Registrar 6.1 to provide more detailed performance measurements for the DNS server. These counters provide more information other than a value between 1 and 10 when gauging the health of the DNS server and can potentially assist with identifying areas in the DNS servers that can be reconfigured to deliver a better throughput.
· New administrative roles are added to Cisco CNS Network Registrar 6.1 to enable Web-based administration for the new features and capabilities.
UPGRADE PATHS
Existing Cisco CNS Network Registrar customers currently can upgrade to the Cisco CNS Network Registrar 6.1 local cluster, which is functionally equivalent to the Cisco CNS Network Registrar server of previous releases. When migrating to release 6.1, customers can use a utility available with Cisco CNS Network Registrar that can import information from the current Cisco CNS Network Registrar database to make Cisco CNS Network Registrar 6.1 operational in a short time.
Customers with an active Software Application Support plus Upgrades (SASU) can request a new local cluster license and a product kit at no cost through the Product Upgrade Tool available at http://tools.cisco.com/gct/Upgrade/jsp/index.jsp. When accessing this tool, customers need to provide the SASU contract number and then request the Cisco CNS Network Registrar 6.1 upgrade kits, which will be shipped from manufacturing in 5 to 10 days after receipt of the request. Because release 6.1 contains some new optional features that are not covered by the SASU entitlements, customers need to purchase these optional features separately via additional product licenses.
ORDERING INFORMATION
Cisco CNS Network Registrar 6.1 products are available for order from Cisco sales representatives, or online at http://www.cisco.com.
To run Cisco CNS Network Registrar 6.1, customers need to order the base product that includes a media kit and right-to-use licenses to manage 1000 or 2000 IP nodes. Customers can buy additional licenses needed to cover their network size.
Customers wanting to deploy the new optional features need to purchase the regional cluster license, which includes cluster-management and address-management capability. This license is also required if a customer wants to activate the RIC server features. Note that both the regional cluster and RIC licensing is based on the number of IP nodes. Customers need to buy the appropriate number of licenses to cover the IP nodes in their network.
Table 1. Ordering Information for Cisco CNS Network Registrar 6.1
Table 2. New Optional Features
FOR MORE INFORMATION
For more information about the Cisco CNS Network Registrar, visit http://www.cisco.com/ or contact your local account representative.
