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DDI Directions: DNS, DHCP and IP Address Management Strategies for Multi-Cloud Era

Shamus McGillicuddy

DDI technology has become more challenging in recent years with the rise of hybrid and multi-cloud architectures, according to a new report, DDI Directions: DNS, DHCP, and IP Address Management Strategies for the Multi-Cloud Era, from Enterprise Management Associates (EMA™).

DNS, DHCP, and IP address management are a suite of core services essential to network connectivity and communications. DDI suites manage the assignment of IP addresses and the mapping of those addresses to DNS domains for both internal and external communications. People who lack networking expertise may think DDI is trivial, but an ineffective approach to these core services can lead to sluggish network operations, chronic downtime, security breaches, and worse.

As with switching, routing, and security, network teams often struggle to extend their DDI architecture into the cloud because they lack control and influence over cloud strategy. Cloud teams often adopt cloud-native tools without the network team's involvement, leading to a bifurcated approach to DDI services that creates complexity and inefficient operations. The new research explores this issue in depth, along with several other major themes, including network automation, DDI security, APIs, integration, and Ipv6.

This research reveals that DDI technology is pivotal to multi-cloud networking, network security, and network automation. IT organizations must invest in solutions that can support these priorities. Do-it-yourself approaches to DDI are untenable in the multi-cloud era.

Additionally, the report provides dozens of best practices for how IT organizations can improve their design and management of DDI services.

Some of the key findings from the report include:

■ Only 31% of enterprises are completely successful with their DDI strategies.

■ 39% of organizations think their DDI solution is an effective source of truth for network automation.

■ Less than 31% of organizations are fully confident in the security of their DNS infrastructure.

■ 59% of DDI teams have sufficient influence over cloud strategy.

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DDI Directions: DNS, DHCP and IP Address Management Strategies for Multi-Cloud Era

Shamus McGillicuddy

DDI technology has become more challenging in recent years with the rise of hybrid and multi-cloud architectures, according to a new report, DDI Directions: DNS, DHCP, and IP Address Management Strategies for the Multi-Cloud Era, from Enterprise Management Associates (EMA™).

DNS, DHCP, and IP address management are a suite of core services essential to network connectivity and communications. DDI suites manage the assignment of IP addresses and the mapping of those addresses to DNS domains for both internal and external communications. People who lack networking expertise may think DDI is trivial, but an ineffective approach to these core services can lead to sluggish network operations, chronic downtime, security breaches, and worse.

As with switching, routing, and security, network teams often struggle to extend their DDI architecture into the cloud because they lack control and influence over cloud strategy. Cloud teams often adopt cloud-native tools without the network team's involvement, leading to a bifurcated approach to DDI services that creates complexity and inefficient operations. The new research explores this issue in depth, along with several other major themes, including network automation, DDI security, APIs, integration, and Ipv6.

This research reveals that DDI technology is pivotal to multi-cloud networking, network security, and network automation. IT organizations must invest in solutions that can support these priorities. Do-it-yourself approaches to DDI are untenable in the multi-cloud era.

Additionally, the report provides dozens of best practices for how IT organizations can improve their design and management of DDI services.

Some of the key findings from the report include:

■ Only 31% of enterprises are completely successful with their DDI strategies.

■ 39% of organizations think their DDI solution is an effective source of truth for network automation.

■ Less than 31% of organizations are fully confident in the security of their DNS infrastructure.

■ 59% of DDI teams have sufficient influence over cloud strategy.

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Many organizations rely on cloud-first architectures to aggregate, analyze, and act on their operational data ... However, not all environments are conducive to cloud-first architectures ... There are limitations to cloud-first architectures that render them ineffective in mission-critical situations where responsiveness, cost control, and data sovereignty are non-negotiable; these limitations include ...

For years, cybersecurity was built around a simple assumption: protect the physical network and trust everything inside it. That model made sense when employees worked in offices, applications lived in data centers, and devices rarely left the building. Today's reality is fluid: people work from everywhere, applications run across multiple clouds, and AI-driven agents are beginning to act on behalf of users. But while the old perimeter dissolved, a new one quietly emerged ...

For years, infrastructure teams have treated compute as a relatively stable input. Capacity was provisioned, costs were forecasted, and performance expectations were set based on the assumption that identical resources behaved identically. That mental model is starting to break down. AI infrastructure is no longer behaving like static cloud capacity. It is increasingly behaving like a market ...

Resilience can no longer be defined by how quickly an organization recovers from an incident or disruption. The effectiveness of any resilience strategy is dependent on its ability to anticipate change, operate under continuous stress, and adapt confidently amid uncertainty ...

Mobile users are less tolerant of app instability than ever before. According to a new report from Luciq, No Margin for Error: What Mobile Users Expect and What Mobile Leaders Must Deliver in 2026, even minor performance issues now result in immediate abandonment, lost purchases, and long-term brand impact ...

Artificial intelligence (AI) has become the dominant force shaping enterprise data strategies. Boards expect progress. Executives expect returns. And data leaders are under pressure to prove that their organizations are "AI-ready" ...

Agentic AI is a major buzzword for 2026. Many tech companies are making bold promises about this technology, but many aren't grounded in reality, at least not yet. This coming year will likely be shaped by reality checks for IT teams, and progress will only come from a focus on strong foundations and disciplined execution ...

AI systems are still prone to hallucinations and misjudgments ... To build the trust needed for adoption, AI must be paired with human-in-the-loop (HITL) oversight, or checkpoints where humans verify, guide, and decide what actions are taken. The balance between autonomy and accountability is what will allow AI to deliver on its promise without sacrificing human trust ...

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