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.