Networks and the internet are reliant on domain name servers, dynamic host control protocol, and IP address management. These three technologies — grouped together as DDI (DNS, DHCP, IPAM) — are central to the way things work but that also makes them a tempting target.

We spoke to Ronan David, chief of strategy at EfficientIP to find out why DDI is so vital to online security and how automation can help with defense.

BN: Why is DDI so important and why particularly now?

RD: That’s a very good question, these services are very old technology which are still absolutely required for networks to operate. We are seeing in the last few years a dramatic increase in terms of network complexity, devices, applications, application networks are all more and more distributed. At the moment if you want to make a connection securely and dynamically between users and applications, you need to rely on on DDI services.

That’s why today, if you’re wanting to deliver end to end automation, or if you’re wanting to truly secure your network infrastructure, you have to take in to consideration DDI services. Because otherwise it’s just not possible to dynamically deploy your services. So, just an example with functions virtualization. If you want to take full advantage of virtualization and be able to deploy a new server in few minutes, you will have a lot of different technologies to reach that objective. The server is not connected to the network until the setup gets an IP address, and the application is not visible to all users until the minute the application gets the domain name. DDI really comes down to getting access to the network to any devices and then make all applications visible.

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