BlueCat Enhances DNSSEC

PRESS RELEASE

Reston, Virginia and Toronto, Ontario - December 8, 2009 - BlueCat Networks, the IPAM Intelligence CompanyT, today announced significant enhancements to its market-leading Proteus IP Address Management (IPAM) and Adonis DNS/DHCP solutions. The new functionality, which includes improved DNSSEC policy management, makes it easier than ever for administrators to centrally configure, deploy, monitor and manage network services from a single central Proteus graphic user interface (GUI).

Recognizing that today's network administrators face increasing internal and external pressures associated with such necessary network upgrades as the introduction of DNSSEC; the introduction of VoIP; the adoption of IT virtualization; and the eventual migration to IPv6, BlueCat has enhanced its solutions to significantly simplify daily network management. The new functionality includes:

DNSSEC Policy Management - As organizations adopt DNSSEC, a key aspect of implementation becomes policy management. Organizations with large numbers of public DNS zones will need an easier way to set up DNSSEC policies in order to simplify key management. Proteus now includes automated Signing Policies for DNSSEC which eliminate the need for administrators to manually assign DNSSEC keys.

Signing Policies automate tasks such as key rollover and record signing. Customers can now define Signing Policies, and then simply apply them to the DNS zones. Proteus automatically defaults to best practices, as outlined by the NIST Special Publication 800-81 - Secure Domain Name System (DNS) Deployment Guide, providing customers with an easy way to implement DNSSEC best practices with the click of a button. In addition to this, Proteus' DNSSEC support uses the latest protocol features including NSEC3 and provides emergency rollover functionality to make it simple to replace a key if it may have been compromised.

Service Configuration - Organizations with large numbers of DNS and DHCP servers need a way to centrally manage all aspects of these servers. This includes other key network services, such as SNMP or NTP, which are used to monitor and maintain the DNS and DHCP services. To assist with this task, Proteus now provides administrators with the ability to view and configure additional services running on Adonis, including NTP, SNMP and SSH. This provides the ability to manage any remote Adonis system from a single centralized GUI - eliminating the need to manually configure these services from each Adonis server.

In addition to this, Proteus now includes a number of additional features to help reduce administrative effort, including improved Log Management, which enables administrators to view all Proteus logfiles from the centralized GUI; Deployment Management, which provides a status page that tracks and monitors ongoing deployments; and a new patching mechanism, which allows hotfixes and security updates to be applied to large numbers of servers simultaneously through the Proteus GUI.

"This update further underscores BlueCat's position at the forefront of DNSSEC innovation by significantly simplifying DNSSEC management to enable organizations to meet the 2009 DNSSEC compliance deadline mandated by the U.S. federal government," said Luc Roy, VP of Product Management and Marketing. "The message we received from our customers running our solution in production was that they wanted better key management and automation to reduce daily administration, and we've provided exactly that," Roy continued. "DNSSEC is critical to securing traffic on the Internet, and we have now made it easier than ever for organizations to improve DNS server security."

BlueCat's solutions simplify network management by making it easy to monitor existing applications and overall network performance. BlueCat's physical and virtual Proteus appliances integrate with its own Adonis DNS/DHCP appliances and Microsoft Windows DNS and DHCP to make it easy for administrators to fully integrate IP inventory tracking and allocation, along with DNS and DHCP management. When managing DNS and DHCP, BlueCat's Proteus IPAM solution becomes "mission control" - providing full command, control and customization of configurations from a secure, central Web-based interface - making it easy to eliminate all IPAM problems. This unified approach, which enables management of all network services from a single Proteus IPAM interface, has been embraced by such organizations as Georgia Tech, AirTran and Boise State University.

About BlueCat Networks

BlueCat Networks, the IPAM Intelligence CompanyT, is a profitable, rapidly-growing leading provider of enterprise-class IP Address Management (IPAM) platforms and secure DNS/DHCP network administration appliances. Today, thousands of BlueCat's award-winning ProteusT IPAM platforms and AdonisT family of DNS/DHCP appliances have been successfully deployed to meet the rising IP management demands of government, military, financial services, retail and manufacturing organizations worldwide. Find out why more Fortune companies choose BlueCat solutions to gain complete, centralized Command and Control of their IP networks at www.bluecatnetworks.com.