DDI Integration with Infoblox

The DDI Integration connects Innomesh Room Manager with your organisation’s Infoblox DDI (DNS, DHCP & IPAM) platform. When enabled, Innomesh automatically reserves standard and multicast IP addresses for devices during room deployment, keeping your Infoblox records in sync without manual intervention.

This article covers the full scope of the DDI Integration: IPAM administration, device-level IP reservation management, deployment behaviour, template support, and the permissions that control each feature.

IPAM Administration

IPAM administration is found under Administration → IPAM in Room Manager. It contains two tabs: Subnet Groups and Settings.

Subnet Groups

A Subnet Group is a logical collection of one or more subnets used for automatic IP address assignment. When Innomesh deploys a room, it draws free IP addresses from the Subnet Groups assigned to each device.

The Subnet Groups tab displays a searchable, sortable, and exportable table with the following columns:

Available address counts are refreshed each time the page loads.

Creating a Subnet Group

1. Click New Subnet Group.
2. Enter a Name for the subnet group.
3. Select a Site from the dropdown. Choose “All” to make the subnet group available for rooms at any Site.
4. Select the Subnet Type: Standard or Multicast.
5. Optionally tick IP allocation can span more than one subnet. When enabled, a deployment may draw IPs from multiple subnets if a single subnet lacks sufficient addresses.
6. Click Add Subnet and enter a CIDR block (e.g. 10.80.21.0/24). Innomesh validates each subnet against the DDI system. If the subnet does not exist in Infoblox, it is flagged as invalid.
7. Add additional subnets as needed, then click Create.

Editing a Subnet Group

Click the subnet group name or press the Edit button. The Name, Site, and Subnet Type are read-only. You can modify the spanning setting and add, edit, or remove subnets.

Deleting a Subnet Group

Press the Delete button to open a confirmation modal.

Settings

The Settings tab configures global IPAM behaviours for hostname validation and automatic hostname modification when moving rooms between Zones.

Each feature can be individually enabled or disabled via its checkbox. Disabled features clear their fields. Press Apply to save, or Revert to undo unsaved changes.

Room Configuration: Devices

For DDI-enabled tenants, the device list within a room configuration gains additional columns and inline editing capabilities.

Auto IP

Auto IP controls whether Innomesh will automatically reserve an IP address for the device during deployment.

• Enabled: A valid MAC address and hostname is required (IP addresses are not accepted). A Subnet Group must be selected. Innomesh will assign a free IP from the selected Subnet Group at deployment time.
• Disabled: A hostname or IP address is accepted. No automatic reservation occurs. The value is treated as a static entry.

New devices automatically have Auto IP enabled. The ability to toggle Auto IP may be restricted by the Toggle device Auto IP settings permission. If a user lacks this permission, the checkboxes appear as read-only.

New/Edit Device (Auto IP Enabled)

When Auto IP is enabled, the device configuration tab is adjusted:

• The Hostname field becomes Hostname (Primary).
• MAC Address (Primary) appears under the Configuration tab.
• A Subnet Group (Primary) dropdown is added, filtered to Subnet Groups matching the room’s Site or set to “All”.
• An IP Reservations button opens the full IP Reservations modal for managing multiple reservations.

New/Edit Device (Auto IP Disabled)

When Auto IP is disabled, the Hostname and IP Address fields are combined into a single Hostname / IP Address field. The IP Reservations button is not available.

IP Reservations Modal

The IP Reservations modal is accessed from the IP Reservations button on the device edit page. It provides full control over standard and multicast IP reservations for a single device.

Standard Reservations

Every device with Auto IP enabled has at least one standard reservation named Primary. The Primary reservation cannot be deleted or reordered; it always appears first.

Additional standard reservations can be added for devices with multiple network interfaces. For example, a DSP might have a “Primary” reservation for its control interface and a “Dante” reservation for its audio network interface.

Each standard reservation includes:

• Name: A label for the reservation (e.g. “Primary”, “Dante”).
• Hostname: Must match the admin-defined regex pattern.
• MAC Address: The network interface’s MAC address.
• Subnet Group: The Subnet Group to reserve an IP from.
• Current Reservation: The assigned IP address, or Pending if not yet reserved.

Non-Primary reservations can be reordered by dragging the handle at the start of the row.

Click Clear Current IPs to mark all standard reservations for re-assignment during the next deployment. This does not immediately remove IP addresses from Infoblox; reassignment occurs when the room is deployed.

Multicast Reservations

Multicast reservations are used for devices that require multicast IP addresses (e.g. video and audio streams). The hostname for each multicast reservation is read-only and automatically synchronised from the Primary standard reservation.

Only Multicast-type Subnet Groups are available for selection.

Reservation Strategy

Multicast reservations support a configurable allocation strategy:

Extensible Attributes (Per Reservation)

Each reservation row includes an Extensible Attributes button (the EA icon). Clicking it opens a modal to view and manage key-value pairs that will be pushed to Infoblox with the reservation.

• Key: Selected from a dropdown of available EAs defined in Infoblox.
• Value: Input type depends on the EA type: free text for String/URL/Email, numeric input for Integer, date picker format for Date, or a dropdown for Enum types.
• Some EAs may be configured as hidden (not shown) or read-only (visible but not editable) by Innomate.
• For standard reservations, EAs are shared across all reservations with the same hostname, even across different devices.
• Enum-type EAs include a “Custom” option that converts the dropdown into a free-text field, useful for entering dynamic expressions.

Room IP Reservations View

Access the room-level IP Reservations view from the View IP Reservations button on the room configuration page. This provides a consolidated, read-only table of all standard and multicast reservations for the room.

The table shows: Device Name, Reservation Name, MAC Address, Hostname, Subnet Group, and Current Reservation.

Hover over a reservation to see additional detail including Netmask, Gateway, and any Extensible Attributes.

Export the table as a CSV file to receive additional columns for Netmask, Gateway, and one column per Extensible Attribute in use across the room’s reservations.

Site and Zone Behaviour

Assigning a Site

When a room’s Site is changed, Innomesh automatically reassigns device Subnet Groups to match the new Site. The reassignment follows this priority:

1. Look for a Subnet Group with the same name at the new Site.
2. If not found, look for a Subnet Group with the same name with Site set to “All”.
3. If neither is found, the Subnet Group for that device is cleared.

Any current IP addresses that fall outside the new Subnet Group’s range are set back to Pending.

Assigning a Zone (Staging / Production)

When a room is moved between Zones, Innomesh can automatically modify device hostnames according to the rules configured in IPAM Settings:

Hostname modifications apply to all reservations (standard and multicast) across all devices in the room.

Deployment Behaviour

Creating or Updating a Room

When a room with Auto IP-enabled devices is deployed, Innomesh performs the following steps:

1. Validate: Hostname formats, MAC addresses, Subnet Group assignments, and device IDs are checked.
2. Check availability: Sufficient free IP addresses are confirmed for all requested Subnet Groups.
3. Adopt existing records: If an Infoblox host record already exists for a matching hostname and MAC, Innomesh “adopts” it by tagging it with Innomesh metadata.
4. Remove unused records: Records for devices that have been removed from the room configuration are deleted from Infoblox.
5. Update existing records: Records are updated as needed to reflect changes to hostnames, MAC addresses, IPs, or Extensible Attributes.
6. Create new records: New Infoblox records are created for new devices and reservations.
7. Restart DNS/DHCP services: Infoblox grid services are restarted to apply changes.
8. Save reservation data: The reservation list is stored for future reference.

Deleting a Room

When a room is deleted:

• All Innomesh-managed Infoblox records for the room are removed.
• DNS/DHCP services are restarted.
• The reservation list is removed.

Templates

IP reservations can be pre-configured at the template level, so that rooms created from a template inherit the reservation settings automatically.

Template IP reservation configuration is identical to room-level configuration, with the following differences:

• MAC Address is not available (it is room-specific).
• All Current Reservation values are shown as Pending.
• Only Subnet Groups with Site set to “All” are selectable.
• The Clear Current IPs button is not shown.

When a room is created from a template, IP reservation settings (including Extensible Attributes) are inherited. Changes made to a template do not retroactively affect existing rooms.

Dynamic Expressions

Both room and template configurations support dynamic expressions for values that should be computed from other parts of the configuration. Expressions are enclosed in {% %} braces and are resolved at deployment time.

For example, a hostname pattern in a template might be:

dsp1-{% $lowercase(configuration.Properties.`Room Name`) %}.av.example.edu.au

For a room with Room Name “GP-A123”, this resolves to dsp1-gp-a123.av.example.edu.au.

Key behaviours:

• Expressions appear in a distinct colour within text fields.
• Hovering over an expression shows a tooltip with the resolved value.
• Updating a referenced field (e.g. Room Name) automatically updates all expressions that reference it.
• Invalid expressions or syntax errors are highlighted in red with an “Invalid reference” tooltip.
• Expressions can be used in hostnames, Extensible Attribute values, device names, and other configuration fields.

Permissions

The following RBAC permissions control access to DDI features:

Standard room permissions (view, edit, deploy) continue to apply. Users can deploy rooms with IP reservations as long as they have the appropriate room-level permissions.