Change infoblox lifecycle state

[DLally]

I'm hoping someone can help point me in the right direction.  Long story short... I have a vRO workflow that runs at VMPSMasterWorkflow32.BuildingMachine.  We're trying to integrate infoblox into our builds now, but there's one issue.  Infoblox comes in before my custom naming workflow and allocates an IP and registers DNS records to the temporary VM name.

Now this causes a few issues because even if windows registers with DNS, when we retire the server...infoblox only cleans up what it knows about, and that's the temporary name.  Then there's still orphaned dns entries that are not automatically cleaned up.

If i could just somehow move when infoblox reserves an IP to after machine provisioned.  Is this possible?  Or can I move when my name gets created?

**edit** I just realized I mean't to say my custom naming workflow runs at buildingmachine, NOT machineprovisioned.

[daphnissov]

No, it has to get an IP before it goes into the MachineBuilding phase. So your naming workflow needs to run first, then that name gets handed off to the Infoblox workflow to register an IP for the given name. From there, the machine gets built with both of those pieces. To be totally honest, keeping track of these EBS subscriptions and managing them is a pain and not at all scalable. If you want to side-step all of that business, the easy button is the SovLabs modules for both custom naming and Infoblox. It manages the EBS states for you and also the hand-off of properties from one to the other so this is a total non-issue.

[hawks76]

We use the Infoblox plugin, and we are able to get the custom naming piece to run as part of the Infoblox workflow.  I can provide some the details on how we do it if you want to DM me.

[DLally]

I just messaged you hawks76, thanks!

[DLally]

I agree the EBS can be pretty daunting.  We've looked at sovlabs and that's on the table.  My issue is the cost.  Everything we'd be buying, I've already configured through vra/vro with exception of the infoblox integration.  I'd have to convert everything over.  Yes, we're also paying for support..so that is a positive.  We might try a POC just to see what they're all about, maybe that'd help sway me. 

[daphnissov]

I would recommend you at least check them out and see for yourself if the simplicity is worth the price, and that's free. I can just tell you that I've implemented most of their modules for a few dozen customers, and they've always worked out extremely well. But consider the fact also that the Infoblox plug-in, which is free, makes no guarantee to be forward API compatible. So if you decide to upgrade your Infoblox and the API causes breaking changes, with the free one you're basically out of luck since you also don't have support with it. I've actually seen this once before and, as you can imagine, provisioning comes to a grinding halt without the ability to get an IP address.