- BFSIBanking, Financial Services & Insurance
- HealthcareComing soon
- ManufacturingComing soon
- Retail & E-CommerceComing soon
Infoblox DNS Infrastructure Protection
If your DNS servers stop answering, nothing on the network resolves. A query flood shouldn’t take them down — Infoblox DNS Infrastructure Protection, formerly Advanced DNS Protection, keeps your own DNS servers answering through floods, NXDOMAIN storms and poisoning attempts — dropping attack traffic on NIOS members you run, in India if you choose.
Buy through TechBag
Same software. Better outcome — at a lower cost.
How it’s rated
Full scoreboard ↓Quick answer
The Infoblox platform family
This page covers Infoblox DNS Infrastructure Protection — the NIOS add-on formerly called Advanced DNS Protection. The rest:
Quick facts
30-second orientation- Product
- A NIOS add-on that drops attack traffic aimed at your own authoritative and caching DNS servers
- Maker
- Infoblox Inc., Santa Clara, California; founded 1999 in Chicago; over 5,700 customers
- Formerly
- Advanced DNS Protection; the NIOS 9.x documentation uses the new name throughout
- Price
- Not published; the licences are obtained through your Infoblox representative
- Licence
- Threat Protection (Software add-on) subscription plus a Threat Protection Update licence for rules
- Platforms
- Trinzic TE-1415 to TE-4025, TE-V and IB-V virtual models, and IB-FLEX, per the NIOS 9.1 table
- Hypervisors
- VMware ESXi, KVM, OpenStack with KVM, AWS and Azure; Google Cloud is not on the list
- Attacks
- Volumetric DDoS and NXDOMAIN floods, plus DNS hijacking and cache poisoning, per Infoblox
- India
- Runs on members you place, so mitigation happens in your Indian site or cloud account
- In India via
- TechBag — member sizing, quote in INR with GST, first rule-tuning pass
Understand DNS infrastructure protection before you buy it
Most product pages skip this. We start here — so you buy a capability, not a buzzword.
What is DNS infrastructure protection?
It keeps your own DNS servers answering when attackers flood them or try to poison what they return.
Unprotected DNS servers vs DNS Infrastructure Protection — the honest table
What consolidation actually replaces, dimension by dimension.
| Dimension | Unprotected DNS servers | Infoblox DNS Infrastructure Protection |
|---|---|---|
| During a query flood | The server saturates and stops answering everyone | Per-source rate limits drop the excess |
| Random-name NXDOMAIN storms | Cache and recursion worn down by junk names | Matched by rule and dropped before the engine |
| New attack techniques | Wait for someone to write an ACL | Rulesets refreshed from Threat Adapt |
| Settings across many servers | Hand-tuned on each box | One profile assigned to many members |
| Seeing an attack | Raw query logs, read afterwards | CEF events and reports by rule and source |
| What it is NOT | — | User protection, a cloud scrubbing service, or a published price |
The cheapest test is one external authoritative member: load the current ruleset, log for a week without mitigation, and read the top-rules report.
The five pieces of the platform
Vendors love diagrams; buyers need to know what they’re actually operating. Here’s the whole platform, demystified.
Member
A Trinzic, vNIOS or IB-FLEX member serving authoritative or caching DNS runs the protection service and drops attack packets before the DNS engine sees them.
Rulesets
Only the Grid Master downloads rulesets, on a schedule or by hand; members receive them by Grid replication, and up to nine versions stay on hand for rollback.
Profiles
A profile bundles a ruleset, event filters and TCP behaviour, so many members share one configuration; profiles can be cloned, merged or inherit Grid settings.
Events
Every protection event is written in Common Event Format to the Grid Master’s syslog, and the reporting server builds attack dashboards and reports on top.
Rules on every protected NIOS member — rulesets pulled once by the Grid Master and replicated to the rest.
Nine capabilities. Detect, mitigate, operate.
Infoblox DNS Infrastructure Protection keeps the DNS servers themselves answering while they are under attack.
Volumetric DDoS and NXDOMAIN
Rules catch query floods and NXDOMAIN storms of random, non-existent names meant to exhaust a DNS server’s capacity.
Hijacking and cache poisoning
Non-volumetric attacks that try to redirect or poison answers are covered as well, which a plain rate limit cannot catch, per Infoblox.
Rulesets that keep changing
With the Update licence, NIOS pulls new rulesets built from Infoblox’s Threat Adapt research and anonymised DNS data.
Limits for each source address
Each rule sets packets per second and a drop interval; excess traffic from one source is dropped while legitimate queries flow.
Rate limiting or outright blocking
Rate limiting, the default, re-checks a source every interval; blocking keeps dropping a source that never falls below the limit.
Your own rules from templates
System and auto rules arrive with each ruleset; templates let you write custom rules, the only kind the Recycle Bin restores.
One profile across many members
Group a ruleset, event filters and TCP settings into a profile and assign it to many members instead of tuning each one.
Roll a ruleset back
NIOS stores up to nine ruleset versions and lets you switch among five, so an update can be undone for the Grid or one member.
Attack history by rule and source
Dashboards rank the rules that fired and count events by member, severity and source, both live and over time.
Watch Infoblox DNS Infrastructure Protection in action
Infoblox’s introduction to the add-on under its current name, and the NIOS 9.0.7 release it runs on. Both from Infoblox’s official channel, recorded in 2025.
Infoblox DNS Infrastructure Protection
Infoblox’s own introduction to the add-on under its current name, recorded after the rename from Advanced DNS Protection.
NIOS 9.0.7: Advanced RPZ, Real-Time DNS Defense & Memory Optimization
The NIOS 9.0.7 release, covering RPZ, real-time DNS defence and memory changes in the platform this add-on runs on.
Want a live, India-context walkthrough for your environment?
Book a guided demo →Floods and NXDOMAIN storms aim at the servers everything depends on. DNS Infrastructure Protection keeps them answering.
Here’s what genuinely sets it apart — and exactly where it stops.
It protects the server, not the user
Protective DNS products such as Infoblox Threat Defense stop employees reaching bad domains. This add-on does a different job: it keeps the DNS servers themselves answering when someone floods them, sends storms of random names or tries to poison their cache. If your public zones or internal resolvers fall over, nothing else on the network resolves.
Rules on the box, updated from one place
Detection and dropping happen on the member that serves DNS, so attack traffic never has to leave your site to be cleaned. The Grid Master pulls new rulesets from Infoblox and replicates them to every protected member; profiles carry one tuned configuration to many members, and older ruleset versions stay available for rollback.
Runs where your DNS already runs
The NIOS 9.1 table lists six Trinzic appliances, six TE-V and five IB-V virtual models, and IB-FLEX, on VMware ESXi, KVM, OpenStack, AWS or Azure. For an Indian business that means mitigation happens inside your own data centre or cloud account in India, with no third-party scrubbing network in the path.
Where it stops
It only protects NIOS members, so Windows or BIND servers stay exposed. There is no public price. Infoblox warns that turning it on can cost significant performance, more so under attack. On hardware members the MGMT port is not protected, and a protected member cannot also hold Multi-Grid or Microsoft Management licences.
The numbers behind the platform
What your DNS Infrastructure Protection rollout looks like
Map the servers that must not fall
List external authoritative and internal caching servers, which are NIOS members, and which run Windows or BIND instead.
Check the members can carry it
Confirm each member is a supported Trinzic, TE-V, IB-V or IB-FLEX model, and size it with Infoblox for the performance cost.
License, load rules, log only
Install both licences, pull the current ruleset on the Grid Master, and run with logging on and mitigation held back.
Tune and build profiles
Read the top-rules reports, raise limits for heavy but legitimate sources, and save the result as profiles per server role.
Mitigate and automate updates
Turn mitigation on, schedule automatic ruleset downloads, send CEF events to your SIEM and agree a rollback routine.
The review scoreboard
Modelled on Gartner Peer Insights structure. *Counts and breakdowns are illustrative pending verified review collection.
Quick poll — what’s driving your evaluation?
Talk to an advisor“An NXDOMAIN flood hit our external name servers during a sale. The random-name queries were dropped and real shoppers kept resolving.”
“Run with mitigation off for a week first. Two partner systems that query us hard would have tripped the default packet rate.”
“We keep one profile for external authoritative members and one for internal caching, tuned once and assigned everywhere.”
“Each new ruleset goes to one member before the rest. Older versions sit on the Grid Master, so rolling back takes minutes.”
“The CEF events feed our SIEM, so the SOC sees DNS attacks beside firewall alerts without opening another console.”
“It works, but only on NIOS. Our Windows DNS at the branches still needed a separate answer, and the quote took weeks.”
Where everyone sits — the grids
Analyst firms bury this view behind paywalls, and G2 retired its Grid. So here’s TechBag’s synthesis of the DNS infrastructure protection market — tap any vendor to see why it sits where it does.
TechBag DNS Infrastructure Protection Grid
Execution strength vs product vision — the classic market map, minus the paywall.
Quoted subscription on top of NIOS; no public price.
Placement Control × Mitigation Depth
The grid nobody publishes — how much of the protection runs on servers you place, India included, vs how many kinds of DNS attack it detects and stops.
On your own members; floods, NXDOMAIN, hijack, poisoning.
Positions are TechBag’s illustrative synthesis of public review-platform data and vendor documentation — not a reproduction of any analyst graphic. Verify before relying on it.
Infoblox DNS Infrastructure Protection vs the DNS-server protection field
Against EfficientIP DNS Guardian, F5 BIG-IP DNS, Akamai Shield NS53, Cloudflare DNS Firewall and Amazon Route 53 with Shield Advanced — on deployment, attacks covered, price, scale, India and exit.
| Dimension | Infoblox DNS Infrastructure Protection | EfficientIP DNS Guardian | F5 BIG-IP DNS | Akamai Shield NS53 | Cloudflare DNS Firewall | Amazon Route 53 with Shield Advanced |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| What it is | NIOS add-on, on the box | DNS security engine | DNS and GSLB platform | Edge proxy for your DNS | Proxy for nameservers | Move DNS, then protect |
| Deployment | On NIOS members | SOLIDserver appliances | Hardware, VE or CNF | Akamai’s edge network | Cloudflare’s network | AWS-managed service |
| DNS servers covered | Authoritative, caching | Cache, recursive, auth | Authoritative and LDNS | Origin authoritative | Authoritative only | Hosted zones on AWS |
| Attacks covered | Floods, NXDOMAIN, hijack | Floods to tunnelling | Floods need AFM | NXDOMAIN, PRSD, floods | DDoS, random prefix | DDoS on hosted zones |
| How it mitigates | Drop by rule, per source | Graduated responses | Answer from memory | Drop at the edge | Cache, limit, refuse | AWS absorbs it |
| Rules and intelligence | Threat Adapt rulesets | Behavioural analytics | Policy you configure | Policies you build | Cloudflare decides | AWS-run detection |
| Pricing model | Subscription licences | Quoted with SOLIDserver | Subscription or usage | Akamai contract | Enterprise add-on | Monthly fee plus usage |
| Published entry price | Not published | Not published | Not on f5.com | Not published | Contract only | $3,000 a month |
| Included vs add-on | NIOS plus two licences | A SOLIDserver function | AFM for DDoS | Beside Edge DNS | Enterprise plan first | Support plan extra |
| Published scale | Lab figures only | Up to 17M QPS | 100M RPS (F5’s claim) | Not published | No figure given | Not stated for DNS |
| Visibility and extras | CEF syslog and reports | Kibana, Splunk, QRadar | DoH and DoT handling | Control Center, APIs | API-driven set-up | Inside the AWS console |
| India | Your Indian site | Appliances you place | Where you deploy it | Locations not listed | Indian data centres | Mumbai, Chennai, Delhi |
| Lock-in and exit | Tied to NIOS | Tied to SOLIDserver | Tied to BIG-IP | Your servers remain | Origins stay yours | Zones move to AWS |
| Best fit | NIOS estates | SOLIDserver shops | BIG-IP shops, GSLB | Akamai customers | Cloudflare Enterprise | Public DNS to the cloud |
Which approach fits you?
Honest fit signals — because the fastest way to lose your trust is to pretend one product wins every scenario.
Choose Infoblox DNS Infrastructure Protection if…
- ✓Your DNS already runs on NIOS, and the servers themselves must keep answering through floods and NXDOMAIN storms
- ✓Attack traffic has to be dropped on servers you own, in India, rather than routed through someone else’s network
- ✓You want rulesets updated by Infoblox and pushed from one Grid Master, with versions you can roll back
Compare alternatives if…
- ✓Your DNS servers are Windows, BIND or SOLIDserver — the add-on protects NIOS members only
- ✓You would rather front public zones with a cloud network — Akamai Shield NS53 and Cloudflare DNS Firewall do that
- ✓You want a price you can read first — Shield Advanced lists $3,000 a month, the only published figure here
Do not expect…
- ✓A public price, or protection that works without NIOS
- ✓Protection for employees browsing — that is Infoblox Threat Defense, a separate product
- ✓An analyst rating for this add-on — none exists
TechBag has no DNS infrastructure protection guide yet, so Infoblox DNS Infrastructure Protection sits outside the category guides. Browse all products to compare it with the rest of the catalogue. →
What do DNS attacks cost you in engineering time?
Drag the sliders (DNS zones you host; engineer-hour cost). Estimates model engineering time spent hand-tuning ACLs, chasing query floods and restoring service after DNS attacks, at an assumed 1.5 hours per zone a year, with 70% of it removed by rule-based mitigation and central rulesets. Both figures are assumptions. Illustrative.
Loaded cost = salary + overheads per productive hour. Illustrative only — your TechBag quote models your actual environment and modules.
Three ways to consume it
Quote only. Infoblox publishes no price for DNS Infrastructure Protection; each protected member needs a Threat Protection (Software add-on) subscription and a Threat Protection Update licence for rulesets, on top of NIOS itself, obtained through an Infoblox representative. TechBag maps your NIOS members first, then quotes in INR with GST.
Software add-on
Best for protecting existing NIOS members
- Quoted subscription; no public price
- Trinzic, TE-V, IB-V and IB-FLEX models
- Renew it or the service stops
+ Platform add-ons
Best for a broader rollout
- Scoped to your estate
- Add-on modules as needed
- Phased, right-sized deployment
Threat Protection Update
Needed for rules and every update
- Quoted; no public price
- Automatic or manual ruleset downloads
- Required for initial rules too
Buy it for less — TechBag pricing beats list
Whatever the list prices above, TechBag negotiates a significantly better deal — with GST-compliant INR invoicing and local support. Ask us for your discounted quote.
Get an India-ready quote
Tell us your requirements and current tools — we’ll model it against what you spend today.
The 8 questions to ask every vendor
Take this into your next vendor call — including ours.
Which DNS servers need protecting, and are they all NIOS members? Windows or BIND servers are outside the add-on.
Is each member a model in the NIOS 9.1 table — Trinzic TE-1415 to TE-4025, TE-V, IB-V or IB-FLEX?
Has Infoblox sized the members? It warns the service can cost significant performance, more so under attack.
Does the quote list the Software add-on subscription and the Update licence per member, in INR with GST?
Do any target members hold Multi-Grid or Microsoft Management licences, which cannot sit beside this add-on?
Will rulesets download automatically to the Grid Master, and who signs off a rollback if one misbehaves?
Where will the CEF events go — the Infoblox reporting server, your SIEM, or both — and who watches them?
TechBag has no guide for DNS infrastructure protection yet, so compare the rivals in the table above directly.
Questions buyers ask
Ready to evaluate Infoblox DNS Infrastructure Protection?
Map which DNS servers are NIOS members first, or let a TechBag advisor size the members, get both licences quoted and plan a log-only pilot.
Stats, ratings, review counts and pricing are illustrative and sourced from public materials; verify before purchase.