Since launching version 1.1 of Nixu DHCP Server in early February, we have been discussing always-on DHCP with dozens of organizations. To sum up these talks, we’ve found that although most entities running Microsoft AD in their network are generally happy with the availability of their DNS service, many of them have suffered from the loss of DHCP service at times. Quite typically, this happens when the operations are scattered around, as Microsoft DHCP servers do not support failover between a number of sites. So in practice, should you loose the Microsoft DHCP server for any reason – or the connection to the data center in which the DHCP server(s) are situated – the dynamic clients in your network will not be able to obtain an IP.

In these cases, we’ve found that the DHCP failover mechanism developed for Nixu DHCP Server 1.1 is ideally suited for network environments such as this, primarily for four reasons:

1. As we rely on network-based API in our DHCP failover mechanism, the two servers in the failover pair can be situated in separate network segments. While this may sound pretty logical at first, commonly used DHCP servers such as ISC DHCPD – or other DHCP products based on it – have actually required both servers in the failover pair to be located in the same network segment, which means that you end up having a pretty substantial number of servers if you want to ensure always-on DHCP in a bigger network. In our case, you can get away in most cases with just one DHCP failover pair.
2. Many of us are running Cisco or Juniper routers in our networks. The beauty of this fact is that both of them support two or more IPs in their DHCP relay configuration option. So in practice, if you run one Nixu DHCP Server in network segment x and another Nixu DHCP Server in network segment y, you can configure the IPs of these two servers in your routers. This makes sure that even if you lost the connection to DHCP server running in network segment x, you will still be able to obtain the IP from server in network segment y.
3. The third point would be ease of management and load-balancing. When running Nixu DHCP Servers as a failover pair, you can manage all configurations from the WebUI of the failover primary: all configurations are pushed automatically to the failover secondary over the network-based API. Further, under normal circumstances, the failover pair does software-based load-balancing which means that you are better equipped to handle sudden traffic peaks after e.g. long weekends when a large number of people return to work.
4. As the fourth point, if your organization is already running virtualization platforms (VMware, XenSource Enterprise Edition, etc.), you do not need hardware to run Nixu DHCP Servers. Just download the ISO installation media (software appliance) from our website and boot up a new vm. Compared to traditional computing appliances, this translates to lower costs and ease of platform maintenance.

Based on the feedback we have received, this approach seems to be the cure for most DHCP headaches. If you’re interested in trying out this approach yourself, you can do so by downloading Nixu DHCP Server for free evaluation from this link.

Some of you may remember my January 15 post on The Long Tail of Networking Software, which was an attempt to explain Chris Anderson’s Long Tail economics in the networking software context. To recap, the point I wanted to make was that the ability to distribute network appliances electronically over the Internet as software appliances (or virtual appliances) is likely to change the traditional distribution and pricing models used by the networking industry, and therefore the way in which networking software will be consumed in the future.

Interestingly enough, on February 25, Chris Anderson introduced his new thesis in Wired Magazine’s article Free! Why $0.00 Is the Future of Business. In this new piece, Chris argues that electronic goods and services that are consumed online and that have a marginal cost of zero, are all heading down the path to gratis. While this notion isn’t exactly controversial for people who have got used to consuming Google’s free tools and services, it’s still quite an intriguing idea. After all, we’ve all been taught that there’s no such thing as a free lunch. But could it be that we’ve all been taught wrong?

Well, I’m not sure about that, but I’m pleased to tell you all that today marks the launch of howismydns.com, an online service designed to validate and check the health of one’s public DNS servers. In addition to the DNS Zone Report tool, the website has also some other useful features such as WHOIS, forward and reverse lookups. The general design principle has been to focus on the essential tools an average DNS admin would find useful rather than including all the bells and whistles in the service. If you asked me, I’d say the DNS Zone Report alone is definitely worth a visit.

Best of all, howismydns.com is free. And by free, we mean absolutely free. There are no limitations as to how often or how many times you may use the service, nor does it require you to submit any information such as email address, phone number or other contact details that pesky sales reps would find handy. Just use it as you like, when you like, to have the health of your public DNS assessed for $0.00.

Last but not least, a word from the sponsor: this free lunch is brought to you by Nixu Software!

Last week marked the release of the new Microsoft Windows 2008 Server with experimental support for server virtualization in the shape of Hyper-V. As I have said here before, we have been convinced that Microsoft’s support will play a large role in server virtualization going mainstream. After all, by the time people have replaced their Windows 2003 Servers with 2008, they all can run software appliances on their Microsoft servers as virtual machines. Then again, this really is old news as Microsoft’s plan and schedule were known well in advance.

But although Microsoft admittedly dominated the media last week with their triple launch on February 27, it was actually VMware that ended up making the most interesting announcements, at least as far as server virtualization is concerned. To welcome Microsoft to the party, VMware had closed deals with all major x86 server manufacturers on factory-installed ESX Servers and announced those agreements at the VMworld Europe 2008 event held in Cannes last week:

• “VMware Announces Agreements to Embed VMware ESX 3i Hypervisor Across Broad Lines of Servers from Dell, Fujitsu-Siemens, HP and IBM”

• “Sun Microsystems and VMware Announce OEM Agreement to Add VMware Virtualization to Sun x64 Server and Storage Portfolio”

If this is not impressive, I don’t know what is! But perhaps even more importantly, this is a clear sign that server virtualization as an industry standard is no longer a question of if – it is a question of when. And this in turn portends a great market for software appliances in the not so distant future, as these two technologies are ideal complements that are likely to gain market share hand in hand.

And on this note, there’s one point I’d like to make to everyone looking at server virtualization: the only way to show ROI on the virtualization investment you make is to consolidate as many network services and applications on your virtualization platform as you possibly can. At Nixu Software, we’re convinced that D-services (DNS, DHCP) and IP address management is a good place to start this work, as these core network services are the lifeblood of virtualized network and computing enviroments. To download a white paper on the topic, please click here.