The shift to the cloud has had a significant impact on the network, broadening its perimeter beyond regional data centers and branch offices to anywhere an organization has resources or people. The networking environment is becoming more problematic as the number of sites, locations, mobile and “internet of things” devices increases at the network edge.

One tool — or rather a set of tools — that can help organizations address the challenges of modern-day networking is DDI, which integrates DNS, DHCP and IPAM or IP Address Management into a single solution. Infoblox is by far the market leader in DDI, but there are a number of free tools, such as the ones offered in Windows Server. 

The problem with the free tools is they typically don’t have the scale to meet the demand of high-performance environments. This set of technologies enables all communications over IP-based networks and plays a vital role in the deployment of secure access service edge or SASE. Most network professionals would not inherently link DDI to SASE, but it’s critical that they do to simplify deployment and ongoing operations.

SASE is a new enterprise networking technology that converges the wide-area network edge and network security into a single cloud-based service. It builds on the concept of software-defined networking, which enables software-based provisioning from the cloud. SASE takes SD-WAN to the next level. Basic SD-WANs have proven issues with management and security, while SASE is designed to be a network security-focused technology from the ground up.

For most organizations, it’s fair to say, the network is the business. If a network doesn’t function, neither does the business. DDI core network services are critical components for all networks and provide the functionalities to keep networks running. The DNS protocol uses different methods to translate domain names into numerical IP addresses. The DHCP protocol dynamically assigns IP addresses to network-connected endpoints, eliminating the need for network admins to configure these settings manually. IPAM tracks and manages the assignment of IP addresses within an organization.

IPAM is something that I find many network professionals ignore, or they use homegrown tools or even spreadsheets. Prior to being an analyst, I was a network engineer and thought I could manage the IP addresses for a relatively small network of 30 locations. How hard could this be?

Anyone that has tried this knows even small environments can get unruly quickly, showing the value of IPAM. The low-cost or no-cost tools are certainly appealing, but they just do not cut it in even medium-sized businesses.  With IoT coming fast, the need for IPAM has increased in importance.

Traditional networking is going through a transformation, as organizations no longer access all their apps and services from within the data center. Concepts such as SASE, SD-WAN, multicloud and IoT are fundamentally changing the architecture of enterprise networks. Organizations today are re-architecting their networks using these technologies to create new business services by leveraging the convergence of people, processes and networked things. ZK Research defines this notion disrupting the business landscape as “digital transformation.”

Especially now in the COVID-19 era, organizations are accelerating their digital transformation initiatives to address demands created by employees working from home. Ensuring that employees can connect to enterprise networks, resources and apps from anywhere on any device is more crucial than ever. With a cloud-based SASE architecture, organizations can provide secure access to every remote enterprise user instead of relying on slow, fragmented software solutions and appliances.

Any organization that is already deploying or considering a SASE architecture should invest in DDI as the foundation. One option is to purchase the D, D and I individually, but there are benefits in buying the tools as a suite.

A unified, distributed DDI solution that combines DNS, DHCP and IPAM can share information across the tools. Analyzing the data to find insights that reduce network downtime and automate common processes, such as troubleshooting and provisioning. It can also provide centralized visibility and administration across the entire environment.

Business leaders need to understand the network has evolved and it could be argued it’s the most strategic information technology asset in the organization. The network has to be resilient; it has to be scalable; it has to be elastic. DDI aids in all of those.

Therefore, C-level executives must acknowledge that not all networks are the same and technology choice matters. How organizations design, optimize and secure their network has a direct impact on how organizations operate.

Zeus Kerravala is a principal analyst at ZK Research, a division of Kerravala Consulting. He wrote this article for SiliconANGLE.

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