External reviews are not included in the AWS star rating for the product.
As a large-scale enterprise, we've relied on BlueCat Integrity as our internal DDI solution for years, managing DHCP, DNS, and IP address administration for our entire corporate network.
We have BlueCat Integrity deployed in a hybrid environment within our data centers and services like AWS, GCP, and OCI, and we are currently migrating to a cloud-only model. Our organization is getting rid of its data centers. So we are actually in the migration phase into being an only OCI and GCP.
My experience with BlueCat Integrity has been straightforward. The platform boasts comprehensive documentation for all its services, readily accessible within the console itself. Whenever questions arise about specific features or functionalities, detailed information is conveniently embedded within the individual web and UI pages. Additionally, BlueCat provides a robust guide for API access, making it a breeze to integrate with the platform. Overall, the GUI deserves a solid five out of five for user-friendliness, while the API learning curve bumps it down to a four out of five.
BlueCat Integrity offers a unified view of our entire IP address space, encompassing both on-premises infrastructure, data centers, and cloud environments. It allows us to automate virtually every aspect of IP address management.
The single pane of glass is extremely important to our organization. We have utilized all of our IPv4 space. So we need to understand what we are utilizing across the entire address space, and having everything in a single pane of glass allows us to quickly find out where we can utilize different insider blocks and stuff like that within our infrastructure. Having it all in one place makes things a lot easier.
It is flexible. The solution does exactly what I needed to do. I've had a long-standing relationship with BlueCat themselves and a lot of the feature requests to address past issues have been implemented. They've consistently updated the API, improved the UI through ongoing integrations, and pushed out platform changes nearly every quarter. While BlueCat Integrity had some initial drawbacks in 2018, its iterative approach and adaptability to our environment ensured it ultimately fit our needs perfectly.
We have implemented an integration between ServiceNow and BlueCat. The asset management database, or CMDB, is housed within ServiceNow. We synchronize information from this database with BlueCat, and vice versa. This ensures accurate representation of all deployed devices within our network, including precise details regarding IP addresses, MAC addresses, and other pertinent data. This integration between the two tools has been successfully established.
Originally, when we deployed our DDI infrastructure using Windows, DHCP, and DNS with Active Directory, managing the platform at scale was a major challenge. We had to log in to each server individually to manage the DHCP IP address space and manually sync all those records between Active Directory for DNS. This involved a lot of manual work just to manage the three services together. Migrating to BlueCat transformed everything. It provided a single pane of glass for all three services. Now, we not only see our entire IP address space in one view, but we can also manage both DNS and DHCP through the same interface. We can even choose which IP address space gets deployed to what server and have records automatically created and populated within BlueCat. This simplified management has dramatically reduced the time we need to spend on maintaining the platform, freeing us to focus on improving our infrastructure overall.
Through APIs or programmatic calls, we can accomplish a much wider range of tasks within BlueCat. We can leverage change control to modify a significant amount of information, implementing new checks and balances along the way. This centralized approach, accessible via a single pane of glass, eliminates the need for constant server logins and manual changes, typically performed by humans. Consequently, human intervention has been drastically reduced, minimizing the risk of human error. Additionally, we've implemented change control, adding an extra layer of transparency and requiring human approval for modifications.
BlueCat Integrity has helped us significantly reduce organizational downtime. This was possible because we rebuilt our entire infrastructure to be highly available. With Windows, we're limited to only two servers, and if one fails, both DHCP and DNS capabilities suffer depending on which server went down. In contrast, BlueCat's single pane of glass management allows us to quickly shift workloads to a different server within the platform, virtually eliminating downtime. This high availability is a major advantage of BlueCat Integrity.
Before implementing BlueCat Integrity, our infrastructure relied on a patchwork of disconnected tools. We juggled Active Directory, DHCP, DNS, and even a timeworn spreadsheet for mapping our IP space. Additionally, managing remote offices involved juggling services like Meraki and others. BlueCat unified these disparate elements into a single platform, granting us access to all necessary features through one interface. This consolidation proved particularly valuable as we transitioned to the cloud. BlueCat seamlessly redeployed onto GCP and OCI, preserving its inherent flexibility without requiring additional tools for these new environments.
BlueCat Integrity has freed up our IT staff for other projects by reducing the need for constant server configuration and manipulation, particularly for new offices. Thanks to its robust automation features, managing the service requires minimal time investment overall. This allows our resources to either focus on approving new service features or tackling other important infrastructure tasks.
BlueCat helped us reduce hidden costs associated with deploying services like Active Directory and DHCP through Windows. These services, while nearly free to install, required significant labor for server maintenance. With BlueCat, we pay more upfront for licensing and server deployment, but the reduced need for engineering and minimal downtime offset this cost.
Transitioning from a free model to a paid one can be slightly more challenging. To make an informed decision, we need a clear understanding of the labor involved in maintaining our current free services. Companies adept at valuing fixes, changes, and server maintenance can readily compare platform costs. We can simply compare our current engineering expenses against the potential investment in a platform like BlueCat deployment. However, quantifying the value of a solution can be trickier, as much of its benefit lies in its hidden aspects, like improved back-end efficiency and platform uptime.
When I first took over ownership of the DHCP and DNS Management services within my company, it was all-consuming. My mind was constantly on what was happening, and what issues needed attention. I was primarily in reactive mode, constantly firefighting and keeping things operational. But after transitioning to Bluecat, a shift occurred. The platform's stability allowed me to move beyond the immediate and think strategically. No longer burdened by constant troubleshooting and remediation, I could finally focus on iterating and driving progress. In essence, I transitioned from a reactive, backward-looking mindset to a proactive, forward-thinking one, empowered by the platform's capabilities.
One of the key features enabling us to operate at our current scale is robust automation. While BlueCat's UI is excellent, we primarily interact with the platform through automation scripts. Therefore, our most critical use case involves making API calls and updating data without needing to log into the console, ensuring thoroughness in the automation component.
Currently, a significant portion of automation within our infrastructure relies on custom-written scripts. For instance, every time we require automated IP address space updates, we must develop the script ourselves. Looking forward, I would welcome pre-existing scripts readily deployable within our infrastructure to alleviate this burden.
BlueCat currently meets our core needs, and we appreciate their service. However, we believe the platform could benefit from significant improvements, particularly in terms of ongoing maintenance and the implementation of new features. One crucial area for development is IPv6 support. As we transition to this newer networking protocol, we lack robust tools and functionalities tailored to IPv6 within BlueCat. Consequently, we'd like to see greater investment from BlueCat in building out their IPv6 feature set.
I have been using BlueCat Integrity for over five years.
BlueCat Integrity has proven to be highly stable. The infrequent incidents we've encountered were primarily due to user error or external factors beyond our control. Nonetheless, BlueCat Integrity has exceeded expectations, consistently achieving our 99.99 percent uptime target. Overall, it's been a pleasure working with this platform.
The only drawback to BlueCat's scalability is the cost, which naturally increases with the number of servers required. Their per-server licensing model reflects this directly. However, the benefits of having a single IP address manager with built-in resiliency for DNS, DHCP, and the IPAN module have been significant. It has seamlessly scaled alongside our infrastructure, which is one of the fastest-growing for a long time, and consistently met our needs. We haven't encountered any scaling issues with BlueCat on-premises.
However, this might change when we fully transition to the cloud. Some services might not be readily compatible with a cloud environment, but we're actively collaborating with BlueCat to overcome these challenges. We're confident that we'll find solutions to ensure a smooth transition to a cloud-based infrastructure.
My recent experience with BlueCat's technical support has been excellent. Their deep understanding of the platform is impressive, and they're always transparent when they need to consult with engineers for further expertise. During the initial deployment, everything went smoothly. We've maintained ongoing communication with their team, and they consistently demonstrate proactiveness, understanding of our environment and challenges, and prompt communication in response. Overall, they have exceeded expectations and set a new standard for customer service within our organization.
In comparison, the DDI environment is a starkly different experience between Microsoft and BlueCat. Microsoft is a large company, and their support for DDI issues can be slow and cumbersome, requiring navigating their ticketing system. Additionally, they don't directly support professional deployments for DHCP and DNS. As a result, we often had to rely on our expertise to troubleshoot issues with the free services offered with their Windows licensing. This lack of dedicated support made managing the environment challenging.
Positive
We were using Active Directory DNS with DHCP, and we were managing a variety of servers, each with different configurations. Our goal was to optimize our environment by having a single, unified view of all three services. BlueCat enabled us to achieve this, making it our primary choice for deployment.
Automating server management was our primary focus. Previously, we manually handled servers across roughly 150 offices, a demanding task with numerous servers to individually address in case of downtime. Implementing a single pane of glass allowed us to not only consolidate server oversight but also run automation scripts against it. This automation enabled us to seamlessly switch to backup servers upon failures, deploy new servers in newly opened offices, and ultimately streamline server management after switching to the single pane of glass.
I led the engineering effort for the BlueCat Integrity deployment. The most challenging aspect is the initial server configuration after deployment. It requires several manual steps, such as logging in through the CLI and entering information for each server, including IP addresses, subnets, and so on. However, once everything is set up and we begin managing the platform itself, the service becomes significantly easier to use thanks to the intuitive GUI. We can then leverage automation and other advanced features. In essence, the initial deployment is the more challenging hurdle, but once the service is up and running, it's a much more pleasant and streamlined experience.
We began by fully deploying the new infrastructure before migrating any services. During the proof of concept, we established the address manager, responsible for managing the IP space. Next, we deployed DHCP and DNS onto the new infrastructure but held off on activating them. Our first migration target was DHCP. We deployed and configured the dedicated DHCP servers, leaving them ready to receive IP address requests. We then embarked on a phased approach, moving office by office to redirect the IP helpers from the Windows DHCP servers to the BlueCat servers. Once all DHCP services were fully transferred to BlueCat, we decommissioned the Windows DHCP servers. The DNS migration followed a similar path. We placed the BlueCat DNS servers behind the Windows ones, synchronized the DNS records for fast transition, and then gradually made the Windows servers non-authoritative for each zone until BlueCat ultimately assumed full control. Finally, we retired the domain controllers from the process.
To expedite the deployment, we initially relied on a team of two engineers and three operations personnel. Once the engineers mastered specific tasks, such as office migration via DHCP, we would transition the task to our ops team, allowing our dedicated ops team to handle the remaining offices. Essentially, the engineers handled all initial testing and process refinement, ensuring their functionality before handover to the ops team.
BlueCat Integrity's professional DNS and support services were outstanding. During our initial implementation, we opted for their higher support package, which proved to be an excellent investment. Their professionalism was a key selling point for us. They provided invaluable assistance with architecture, design, and implementation, remaining actively engaged throughout the process. Whether we were making minor adjustments or significant changes, they were always readily available to jump on a call and offer prompt support. They even walked us through the entire process, ensuring we understood every step. I can't say enough about how impressed I was with their service. They were unwavering in their dedication to helping us achieve our goals.
Deploying BlueCat Integrity has yielded a significant return on investment for our company, primarily due to the substantial labor savings it has achieved. The increased availability it affords has kept our engineers and offices up and running, while also reducing the need for ongoing product maintenance. While the impact may vary depending on a company's size and specific circumstances, BlueCat Integrity has demonstrably improved our operational efficiency and delivered a clear ROI.
The BlueCat pricing model has shifted from perpetual licenses to subscriptions, prompting us to re-evaluate our infrastructure. While BlueCat falls on the expensive side, its exceptional customer service and consistent quality justify the cost. We find continuing our partnership with them valuable due to the ongoing support and reliable solutions they provide.
We initially evaluated Infoblox, a major competitor to BlueCat in the market at the time. However, their solution proved incompatible with our existing infrastructure and their focus was solely on product sales, showing no interest in collaboration. In contrast, BlueCat's customer-centric approach impressed us. We've enjoyed a close partnership with them, characterized by continuous feedback exchange, making us feel like valued partners in their product development. This commitment to customer satisfaction ultimately tipped the scales in BlueCat's favor.
I would rate BlueCat Integrity a nine out of ten. BlueCat Integrity is a fantastic product that's never let me down in my infrastructure. Since deploying and signing it up, it's been rock-solid and exceeded expectations.
BlueCat Integrity is deployed throughout our entire company, including both the corporate headquarters and individual departments. We have it operational in four data centers strategically located around the world: the East Coast and West Coast of the United States, Amsterdam, and the APAC region. This infrastructure supports all 150 of our enterprise offices worldwide, as well as 400 Green Light Hubs or customer success centers. It automatically assigns IP addresses to all these locations, serving our 40,000 employees.
In addition to the occasional unscheduled security patch, they release regular quarterly updates to address any bugs or issues. This is the primary focus of our maintenance efforts, ensuring the platform stays up-to-date and secure.
Using a full-stack integrated DDI management solution has significantly improved my understanding of our environment's address space allocation. It clarifies which addresses are assigned via protocols like DHCP and reveals the existing DNS records. Under a single pane of glass, managing these services takes much less time. As a DDI professional, I strongly believe we should always consider these services as one, not three separate components. Viewing them individually creates significant gaps while recognizing them as a unified whole removes these disparities.
Whether BlueCat Integrity is right for you depends on your specific needs. For some organizations, like ours, it was a game-changer when we were scaling rapidly. We needed a service that could grow with us, and BlueCat fit the bill perfectly. However, smaller companies might not require the sheer power and features that BlueCat offers. It's a sophisticated tool, and simply clicking buttons in the UI won't unlock its full potential. But if you're committed to building automation and robust processes around your DDI stack, then BlueCat is worth exploring.
We use BlueCat Integrity to manage all of our IP addresses. Whenever we deploy a new device or anything that needs an IP address, we consult our IP address manager. This includes anything that is not on our DHCP scope, mainly server-based systems. We manually enter the DNS names for these IP addresses. We use DHCP for quite a few systems, but we set reservations for certain endpoints that require static IP addresses, such as admin desktops that we only want to allow those IPs through.
We have BlueCat Integrity deployed on-premises. We have three servers: a master and two IP address managers, which are devices that serve up IP addresses and handle DHCP.
BlueCat Integrity is easy to use for those who are accustomed to Windows. There was a slight learning curve, but it wasn't difficult at all. Everything is laid out very well. Creating records, CNAMEs, subzones, and so on is all quite straightforward. I didn't have any problems with it and didn't need to call support or ask other people for help most of the time. It's very well laid out. BlueCat gave us a quick overview when they helped us set it up, and from there, I was able to figure everything out on my own. I would say it's quite intuitive.
BlueCat provides us with a single pane of glass view. This is a convenient feature to have but not necessary.
Since implementing BlueCat, we have experienced fewer problems, anomalies, and strange issues. Our desktop support staff no longer complains about not receiving DHCP addresses. BlueCat seems to be more reliable.
BlueCat has helped reduce downtime.
BlueCat has freed up around 20 percent of our staff's time, making it easier and quicker for us to manage IP addresses, since we didn't have an IPAM system or even use Windows before. We now only use Windows for DNS integration, so having a reliable source for IP address management has been helpful.
I'm a security engineer, so I do a lot of deployments, especially for POCs. When we need a new server built, we request an IP address from the infrastructure team. We verify that the IP address is not being used through IPAM, DACP, and the DNS server. These tools are essential for anyone who works in IT, but they are not unique to us.
One complaint about the interface is BlueCat's handling of subzones. We have many subzones in our domains, so getting to each one requires a lot of clicking, instead of having them all listed out for us. I'm not sure why BlueCat chose to do it this way but this is an area for improvement.
I have been using BlueCat Integrity for almost eight years.
We have not had any downtime. BlueCat Integrity is stable.
We previously used SolarWinds IPAM, but it was terrible, so we switched to BlueCat, which we have found to be more reliable.
We had some concerns about the deployment so we hired a team for the implementation. We had around five people from our organization who helped with the deployment.
We hired consultants to help us implement BlueCat to minimize downtime during the transition. They were very knowledgeable and did a great job.
The professional DNS and support services were quite good. I had no serious problems, and everything went smoothly. We didn't encounter any major hiccups.
We have seen a return on investment from reducing downtime, and even just managing IP addresses helps.
BlueCat's pricing is good, though not as cheap as SolarWinds'. However, we are happier with the BlueCat product. We paid around $5,000 per year for SolarWinds, and now we pay around $20,000 per year for BlueCat, but we have less downtime and fewer issues with DNS and DHCP.
Before selecting BlueCat Integrity we evaluated the offerings from SolarWinds and ManageEngine.
We chose BlueCat because it offered an all-in-one IPAM, DNS, and DHCP solution. We received some good recommendations from consultants, and we made our decision based on reviews. Everyone who had used it seemed to like it.
I would rate BlueCat Integrity eight out of ten.
BlueCat has helped us reduce our total cost of ownership by around $2,500 per year since we implemented it eight years ago.
With BlueCat, I can rest knowing I have peace of mind and don't have to think about it.
We do patches on the systems every few months.
For medium-sized and large businesses, It is very important to have an IP Address Management solution. No one wants to have IP conflicts, especially if we are manually assigning IP addresses or using only a ping tool. An IPAM solution can help reduce downtime more reliably than Windows or some cheaper products.
For those who can afford it, I recommend using professional services. They can help to smooth out the deployment process and show how to use the tool more effectively. A lot of training is not required, but having professional services walk us through everything can be helpful to get our IT team comfortable with the product and to ensure that our update process is properly documented.
We primarily use BlueCat Integrity for DNS purposes internally.
We deployed BlueCat Integrity using a hybrid model because many of our applications are finance-related. This product helps us to secure those applications and always helped our internal applications to work in secure environment.
BlueCat Integrity is very user-friendly. Its interface is easy to navigate and has all the features we were looking for, compared to other vendors. This made it easier for us to manage and deploy in our complex environment, which includes multiple domains and acquired companies.
We have integrated ServiceNow with our DNS server. If any alerts are created or any issues are detected, we receive an alert directly in ServiceNow, which is then routed to a specific team.
BlueCat Integrity provides a single pane of glass view of our IP addresses, which is useful for our organization. We sometimes lose track of which IP address range is assigned to which server or team, but BlueCat Integrity keeps track of everything for us, making it easy to see at a glance which IP addresses are assigned to Team A or Team B for example.
BlueCat Integrity helps to prevent human error. If we enter incorrect information, such as an incorrect subnet, BlueCat Integrity displays a pop-up message stating that the information is incorrect and that we should recheck the configuration. This is an add-on feature that is not available in other solutions.
It has helped us reduce downtime. When we used Windows DNS, we had many issues, such as the server hanging occasionally. We had to reboot the entire server during production hours, which caused major incidents. BlueCat Integrity has minimized these incidents, and we now have zero downtime. Nothing has happened on our site since we implemented it. All major incident calls have been eliminated.
BlueCat Integrity helped us consolidate by eliminating our old DNS server, which we used to track command-line or third-party utilities. This saved us costs, as we no longer need to purchase licenses for those tools. Everything is now visible through BlueCat Integrity.
It helps us free up staff time. With our old DNS system, we had to engage all of our staff many times, such as at midnight, during the day, or operations. This took a lot of time for us to process the product queue. For example, if I wanted to send someone on training, I had to cancel it because of these issues. But now,
We have peace of mind because we no longer receive major incident calls late at night or early in the morning.
DNS aliases, which we use extensively in our applications are a valuable feature. We simply provide the alias to users, and they cannot see the real IP address or DNS name. This feature is specific to each application and is very powerful for us.
- DNS load balancing features for A records for most of clusters we use for GoAnywhere MFT applications.
I have been using BlueCat Integrity for over 12 years.
BlueCat Integrity was down only once in the last year for a security patch.
We have not had any issues with the scalability of BlueCat Integrity. We have already implemented a load-balancing solution with seven appliances, so if we need to replace one, the others will take over. We have the same setup in staging, development, and lab environments. We test all new changes in the lab environment before moving them to staging and then to production. This is a very well-balanced product.
Awesome customer service from BlueCAT whenever we needed.
Positive
Originally, we used Microsoft DNS, but it had many problems. We had to purchase and constantly monitor many tools with Microsoft. If we skipped an option during configuration, we would continue to receive error messages, and we would have to check the event logs to keep track of those errors. BlueCat Integrity is very easy to manage, so we chose it.
Multiple teams were involved in the step-by-step implementation. The infrastructure architecture team analyzed the requirements and then passed them to us for the proof of concept. Once the POC was completed, we implemented the changes in the development environment, then in the staging environment, and finally in the production environment.
With the help of BlueCat support , internal team implemented as a team work.
Our management very happy with BlueCAT supports and services.
We worked closed with our BlueCat TAM and work on cost and pricing based on our business partners requirement.
We evaluated BlueCat Integrity and other vendors and found that BlueCat Integrity was one of the most reliable options in terms of both security and administration. Their support team was also helpful and quick.
I give BlueCat Integrity a ten out of ten.
BlueCat Integrity does not require maintenance. There are no specific patches and the solution updates automatically so we don't have any additional downtime.
The value and security that BlueCat Integrity adds to an organization demonstrates the value of a full-stack integrated DDI management solution.
BlueCat Integrity is the most reliable DDI solution with awesome customer support. Whenever we have any issues or urgent customer or business needs, they are always there to help. We call them and they immediately start working on the issue, and they come up with a solution quickly. We can usually implement the solution within one or two days. Their customer support is that good.
We replaced our legacy solution used to manage our network with BlueCat Integrity, a vendor-backed solution.
BlueCat Integrity is easy to use for end users and not difficult for administrators. I have used much more difficult solutions that are not directly related to DDI. For end users, the solution is intuitive on a daily basis.
It provides a single pane of glass view for our IP address space, which is important for our organization.
BlueCat Integrity is flexible and user-friendly for our end users.
BlueCat Integrity has helped improve our organization by simplifying the end user's experience and improving our integration with third parties.
Managing our DDI infrastructure globally is simple, and BlueCat's personalized relationship with us is valuable to our organization.
The interface is good, better than what we were used to.
The integration has room for improvement.
Everything related to automation can be improved.
The deployment process needs to be simplified.
I have been using BlueCat Integrity for ten years.
Yes. In-house built solution, lacking lots of features, complex to support and almost impossible to evolve or enhance with new functionalities (e.g.: IPv6 support)
The deployment took around three years because we were migrating from our pre-existing in-house tool.
The solution was deployed through an in-house team with support from BlueCat's professional services, who played a critical role in the success of our migration.
I would rate BlueCat Integrity eight out of ten.
We use BlueCat Integrity to have visibility into our address management.
BlueCat Integrity is fairly straightforward. I have been using it myself for quite a long time. The actual user interface is a little dated, but that is being addressed in the upcoming release.
BlueCat Integrity provides a single-pane-of-glass view of our IP address space, which is important for our organization to see what is being utilized.
For the six years we have been using BlueCat Integrity, we have begun to transition from Microsoft to BlueCat DHCP and DNS. The ability to easily view our options and zones is a significant improvement over our previous approach. The user interface has improved over time, but it is still somewhat dated. A major UI overhaul is planned for release 10, which is scheduled for release next spring.
BlueCat Integrity can help reduce human error by pushing changes to multiple places with only one human input, reducing the likelihood of errors. Compared to our previous solution, BlueCat has reduced human errors by 25 percent.
BlueCat Integrity has not really helped us consolidate any tools. We were already using one Microsoft tool, and now we are using one BlueCat tool, with the advantage of only having to use one interface with BlueCat Integrity versus multiple with Microsoft.
BlueCat Integrity is a solid product. It does not have flashy features, but it is reliable and we have few problems with it. BlueCat does a good job of keeping the product up-to-date with security patches and updates. BlueCat Integrity provides us with flexibility and visibility that we did not have before.
The most important improvement is that it would be nice to have more built-in tools for bulk updates and bulk changes. I understand that there are APIs for this, but that requires coding skills. I am no longer a coder, so it would be helpful to have built-in tools for imports and other tasks.
The UI is outdated and needs a modern refresh.
The RFC is over 25 years old, and some record types have become obsolete. I would like newer DNS record types, even if they are not part of the RFC.
I have been using BlueCat Integrity for six years.
We originally used Microsoft for DHCP, DNS, and IP address management. We have since migrated to BlueCat Integrity for better visibility into our address management. Multiple people are able to manage using BlueCat Integrity.
The initial deployment was straightforward. The basic deployment took one month, but the full deployment with the server took around six months and was completed by two people.
Originally, we compared BlueCat Integrity to other products. It was not the cheapest nor the most expensive solution, but it was among the more expensive ones. Overall, I would say that it is priced fairly, though perhaps a bit on the high side.
I would rate BlueCat Integrity eight out of ten.
BlueCat Integrity is deployed in our corporate environment across multiple locations around the world.
The purpose of the solution is to provide DNS, DHCP, and icon services for the corporation and all subsidiaries.
I like that it's a single source of truth for us. We automate against it. We use APIs against it due to the fact that it is where the data is. The solution provides a single pane of glass view. And we use it as a single source of truth. It’s crucial for us.
It’s flexible. The tool can certainly be customized to no end. You can make a lot of stuff work if you're willing to divert from the standard options, which of course then brings the risk that you're not running the planned configuration. We have a few border cases, so we actually do that.
The solution helped our organization reduce downtime. Compared to where it was before, even if it's a very theoretical question, I’d say the downtime has decreased.
BlueCat Integrity helped us consolidate tools or applications. Through an API and having the data there we were able to build some tools that have allowed us to get rid of a lot of other tools.
It is not that easy to use. It's not rocket science, however, even compared to other products in the BlueCat portfolio, it's one of the most complicated.
The big downside of the customization is when there are new releases and you have to customize all of it again since you’ve diverted from the standard.
One of my biggest criticisms is that you need additional pieces of software. Competitors have a lot of these things built into one solution. BlueCat doesn't. I need additional resources to actually do things. You actually need a lot of add-ons from the solution's portfolio. While some of them are provided, most you have to pay for separately. In reality, they should just be part of the product.
The reporting capabilities need improvement. It holds a lot of information, and that information is easily accessible in the tool and through API. However, for instance, the moment anybody who is not a user of the product asks me for some information and I just want to run a report to hand back to them or something like that, it gets utterly complicated.
Quite a few times we have not been able to pull reports out of the tool and provide them.
Usability needs to be better. The main structure basically hasn't changed in years. It's got a bit polished, however, it doesn't really have a modern UI-based tool. That said, the product is being used by IT professionals. Still, sometimes the old design makes things unnecessary and difficult.
I've been using the solution for four years now.
BlueCat is stable.
The solution is scalable in multiple ways. There are lots of ways to scale.
While we did not exactly use anything else from the DDI side, we were using Windows DNS.
The main reason for the adoption of this product was to have one centralized management system. That was one of the key drivers. Also, we wanted visibility and stability for having that single source of truth.
We're running one special environment that is fully deployed in the cloud, and our main environment is deployed on-prem remotely.
It's easy to deploy on-prem and even easier to deploy the cloud version. Our migration team deployed the solution. They were comprised of three people. It took us a year to deploy, however, we had to make the whole transition to remote work first.
We use the solution globally. We have it across a few production campus facilities and 25 subsidiaries globally.
We have to run the updates. We're on our own for that. We basically do the data. When we get the notifications, we go into scheduling the when, what, and how internal testing will take place. We plan to do all of this in-house.
Of course, we have to monitor the devices themselves. They sometimes act up, and sometimes the product does not report certain issues efficiently and then we have to dig into the log file. There is a lot of proactive maintenance in that regard. The good thing is that the product is so standardized and open. At the end of the day, of course, I would prefer not to have to do it.
BlueCat helped with implementation. During the design phase, we had some workshops with them and they provided good insights and best practices.
We have witnessed an ROI while using the product. The ROI mainly comes from the initiative itself, including centralizing data and having automated server deployment. We've saved money across a variety of products, so it's hard to pinpoint an exact number.
We are paying for an enterprise license. I'm not aware of the exact cost. The pricing, as far as I understand it, is fair. It's not cheap and also not expensive.
We use the API to do certain calls, however, not with ServiceNow or any other ITSM. It's more for other really technical tools that need specific kinds of information. We don’t really do integrations.
To anyone at an organization who doesn't think they need a full stack integrated management solution, I'd say, actually, this is an absolute must-have. Automation really is the biggest driver. I could not see how someone could ever do any meaningful automation without having this kind of platform. Also in terms of security, it's important for security initiatives. You simply need to have the visibility of your network. That's another big one.
If a person is interested in the solution, it's important to evaluate the product. Look for a reference customer and dig into the possibilities of the product.
I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.
We would like to utilize BlueCat Integrity to initiate operations in multiple regions, aiming to establish a disaster recovery, scalability, and resilience plan for the APAC and MA regions.
BlueCat Integrity is user-friendly, thanks to its powerful API. Our technicians appreciate the solution's excellent graphical interface, which makes it easy to comprehend.
BlueCat Integrity is flexible, fast, and quite optimized.
Currently, our company is satisfied with BlueCat Integrity, which has granted us peace of mind.
The most valuable features are scalability and cloud infrastructure.
During our testing phase, we encountered some issues with Active Directory and DNS reverse lookups.
I have evaluated BlueCat Integrity and will be implementing it in July.
In the limited contact I have had with BlueCat Integrity's support, they have been excellent.
Positive
We previously utilized Microsoft on-premises, but we transitioned to BlueCat Integrity for cloud support.
The deployment process is straightforward. We intend to deploy based on regions and site types, such as forward operating bases, followed by administrative offices, headquarters, warehouses, and finally factories or plants.
Our management decided that there is a return on investment and that is why they have decided to move forward with BlueCat Integrity.
BlueCat Integrity meets our expectations and aligns with our budget forecast.
We evaluated Infoblox and chose BlueCat Integrity because it uses fewer resources and offers a better price. We appreciate their support and consulting services, as they understand that BlueCat Integrity is not widely known in the world due to being newer in the market. However, they compensate for this by providing effective consulting services that offer proof of concept and demonstrate value.
I give BlueCat Integrity a ten out of ten.
I suggest that any organization which doesn't believe they require a comprehensive, integrated DDI management solution should consider utilizing the consultation services offered by BlueCat Integrity. This will help them understand the value it brings.
I recommend that organizations try BlueCat Integrity, as they will love it.
We use BlueCat Integrity to deliver DNS service to our customers.
We use the solution throughout our entire network environment.
BlueCat Integrity has an intuitive interface, making it easy to use.
It offers a unified view of our IP address space through a single-pane-of-glass interface. The unified view is essential because we can implement all the solutions while having visibility in this dashboard.
BlueCat Integrity is highly flexible. It can be used in a wide range of situations and offers numerous options for integration.
BlueCat Integrity has helped us accelerate the product implementation process and reduce the time spent on DNS.
We have saved around five hours a week per technician for troubleshooting because it is all done automatically now. This frees up their time to focus on other security products.
Since implementing BlueCat Integrity we have not had any downtime in the network.
The most valuable feature is the IPAMs, which provide visibility into all the IP addresses on the network.
The technical support is slow and has room for improvement.
I have been using BlueCat Integrity for two years.
BlueCat Integrity is highly stable.
BlueCat Integrity's technical support is unsatisfactory because they are slow to respond, and we consistently find ourselves having to reiterate our issues to them. That is why we opt for partner support instead.
Negative
We previously used Azure DNS and switched to BlueCat Integrity because it offered better visibility into the IPs.
Compared to Microsoft, BlueCat Integrity is an enterprise DNS solution that provides us with peace of mind and enables us to concentrate on other tasks without experiencing any failures.
The implementation took slightly longer compared to the implementations we have completed for other products.
We used an implementation partner service.
We have witnessed a return on investment within two years of implementing BlueCat Integrity.
Compared to other solutions, BlueCat Integrity offers a competitive price.
I give BlueCat Integrity a ten out of ten.
We use it for IPAM, DNS, DHCP, and cloud solutions.
We've enhanced security with the toolset. It has given us a better, real-time jump on issues that might crop up versus an issue that has already arrived and now we have to deal with it. We can catch it a little bit before it goes off, which is great. Other tools, like antivirus or malware, catch it once the machines are trying to download the packages. With DNS, you catch that as it's trying to attempt to go and ask for the download, so it's a couple of steps before, which makes it to be a lot faster in saving a lot of extra work that would be needed.
It provides a single-pane-of-glass view of our IP address space, which is very important for us. It's an item that can be used across the board for multiple teams—from network to platform teams. It's an easy-to-use portion of the toolset that's out there.
We're using its integration with ServiceNow. It's a great integration. We're expanding on those out-of-the-box tools with which integrations are provided. So, we're able to expand our capabilities. We're looking at other automations as well to expand.
It has helped reduce human error. Prior to BlueCat, which was a long time ago, we used to have spreadsheets and notepads of our records of where DNS is, what's being kept, what's not being kept, which networks are available, and which ones aren't available. I've run into some colleagues in other organizations that still do this today, and I'm surprised because we've had a lot of overlaps. We've had machines being built that are stepping on top of other machines. We've had production outages, whereas now with the IPAM capability and the real-time view into it, all those mistakes are pretty much gone. We don't have any overlap. We don't see any other machines taking over IP space from other machines. That's pretty much gone. It provides a great single source of truth for what's in our infrastructure.
It has helped to reduce downtime. When there are issues, a lot of fingers point back to its DNS. With the toolsets and with what's provided in diagnostics, we're able to prove and provide reliable information to lessen an outage in some areas so that they can start concentrating on items other than DNS. We're able to jump in and reroute and move items around to make things move faster.
It has helped to consolidate tools or applications. We rely on multiple Microsoft solutions, Linux, Unix, and Red Hat. We're able to take all that and have that under one umbrella for DNS. We're now able to streamline that type of configuration.
It has freed up our IT staff for other projects. The resiliency that it provides had me focus on being able to do other work for DNS or other tasks that are assigned to me outside of DNS. If we were looking at it in terms of manpower, it has saved about one manpower's worth of work for a year.
The most valuable piece, which has been a lifesaver, would be the BlueCat DNS resolver. BlueCat Cloud DNS resolver is a tool that takes a look into your cloud's DNS and then reports back everything it finds into BlueCat's DNS Edge solution. The Edge solution has a bunch of nice rules that you can configure to route the DNS traffic. That automation alone is a lifesaver for me for the day-to-day churn of the DNS components that change on an hourly, daily basis.
From the time that I've been using it and the input that I've been having into their engineering, they're very flexible in seeing what the issues are. They're very flexible in working on new changes within the product. I've had great input on issues that we've run into in our world when using their products.
The ease of use is where I got to give a little knock on them. Once you start using the tool, it becomes very easy. It's actually quite easy to use. The problem that I run into is documentation. The documentation could be a little bit richer. Documentation has always been a little pet peeve for me with them.
Sometimes the documentation does not really show real-world applications. Need to get tickets into support to get more details on how an item is supposed to operate or some CLI sequence may be missing in the docs.
I am hoping to see an improved robust process to mass import/export IPAM data in their next major release.
We've been a customer of BlueCat since about 2013.
It's very stable. We've only run into one issue this past week and a half ago. We had roughly two outages all this time, and it was the second outage. That was due to a bug not in BlueCat software but in the underlying Linux bind. We actually hit it, and we were able to work around it and fix the issue and get moving again. In ten years, there were only two outages, so the system is very stable.
It scales very well. We're able to move and change things on the fly. We're able to bring up, bring down, not lose a beat, and still be in production without issues.
They're hands down fabulous. They're there in a pinch. We use their enterprise solution for support, and they are top-notch. I can't say anything wrong with them. They're there when you need them.
You have to work out a schedule with them. They just don't sit there and wait for Dave Muscat's call. Just put it that way. I have to schedule it with them, but they're there. In some cases, when we have issues where some people contact me with problems, or our customers need to have something resolved, and I'm not hitting it, I put in a ticket. It's a quick and easy process.
They're usually pretty good at responding. They sometimes respond within 15 to 20 minutes. They're sometimes a lot better than what they put out there in their SLA. We're on the phone talking quickly. In our outage situation that we had last week, within minutes, there was already an email with a link in there to jump on a call so we can start working on the issue. I'd rate them an eight out of ten.
In terms of comparing their support with the support for our previous solution, the previous solution that we had was a free Microsoft solution, so there was no support tied to that. That was just us and googling.
Positive
We had a mixture of many products. It was Windows, Sun Solaris, and spreadsheets.
We used to be part of a division of another company, and we were being sold off into our own company. I happened to raise my hand at a meeting with only a couple of weeks left to go before the actual cutoff date. I asked what we are doing for DNS. I was told that we just put a bunch of machines together to which I said no. You don't just put a bunch of machines together. You have to have a hierarchy of a solution. There was a third-party management company that was managing our separation, and they formed a little group that looked at three different products, and BlueCat won that process.
In terms of the deployment model, we have both environments. We're on-prem with all virtual servers, and we're also in the cloud. It's an Azure cloud, but it's private to us.
Ease of deployment is there once you work out the nuances of the documentation. Once you read between the lines, It goes quite well. Deploying virtual machines is a very easy process. They've really matured in deployments of their DNS Edge solution and patching.
In terms of the deployment duration, technically, we're still deploying after all these years. When we first launched the project, the initial deployment and cutover were in the vicinity of 12 to 18 months because of the sheer amount of data that we needed to migrate. We were working with all the teams. We're in the healthcare field, so there were a lot of HIPAA regulations and time frames based on the contracts we had.
Only I was involved in its deployment. Its original deployment and any subsequent deployment were done by me. I finally got my first person to help me this week.
When it comes to maintenance, I do have a group of three guys in India. They take care of patching, and they take care of the upgrades. They take care of the low-level tickets that come in and get generated in our ServiceNow platform. They handle requests to add or remove a record.
Our outage levels have gone down to almost nothing. We're roughly 99.8% outage free at this point in time since using the product. We've only had two medium-sized outages, and neither one of those outages caused an outage. It has been reliable enough.
I can sleep at night. I haven't said that about any other product I've dealt with, whether it's Microsoft, Linux, Cisco, or anything of that nature. I can sleep at night knowing the type of redundancies and configurations that have been put in place and the collaborative engineering work that we and BlueCat have put together to make things solid for us.
They're competitive. The way they run their model is good. Could it stand some tweaking? Sure. There are some items there. One of the things I looked at in the recent past was their container solutions. You have to pay for licensing to use their containerized platform, but the licensing doesn't include the container licensing itself. I'd love to be able to have one big package per se.
They were flexible with us. We were in a model at the time where we owned the licenses, and as time progressed forward with the product, we're now in a subscription-based model, which makes it easier for us to move the product around the way we need to use it. It has made that easier for us.
I've never been the person who brings numbers into the equation when I'm dealing with the product. So, I don't know about the total cost of ownership, but according to me, it's well worth every dime we pay for it. It has streamlined our business across the board.
We evaluated Men&Mice and Infoblox. BlueCat won that process just for ease of use and ease of installation. We were also not looking at solutions that would sit on top of a Microsoft product at the time.
Make sure you have your data available. You should have your IPAM data and your DNS data. You need to be able to bring it in, so you need to have a mechanism to pull that. You can test the solution, probably in a small VMware environment. It doesn't have to be cloud. It doesn't have to be anything elaborate. If you have a small lab, you can probably throw this together.
To someone at an organization who doesn’t think that they need a full-stack, integrated DDI management solution, I'd say that I don't care how big or how small an organization you are. You need some type of solution to manage your network. You need to have at least some type of IPAM. You need something that's going to keep track of your network space and your DNS space. You need to be able to look at it at a glance and be able to manage those systems and make changes on the fly. Whether you're a small school or a small business, you need to have something.
Overall, I'd rate it a nine out of ten. The reason why I rate it a nine is the documentation. I've always had problems with their documentation.