Critical network services such as DNS, DHCP, and IP (DDI) impact cloud performance and availability. Increasing complexity in cloud management exacerbate the cybersecurity challenges.
The promise of hybrid multi-cloud strategies is tantalizing – unparalleled flexibility, enhanced performance, and significant cost savings.
However, can organizations truly enjoy all these advantages without facing inherent complications and risks? Infoblox’s latest research reveals a stark divide in APAC’s hybrid multi-cloud landscape – 91% of organizations now use multiple cloud providers but many struggle with the added complexity.
How can we overcome the challenges and avoid the security pitfalls arising from this complexity? CybersecAsia sought out some answers from Paul Wilcox, Vice President, Asia-Pacific and Japan, Infoblox.
What are some hidden pitfalls causing hybrid multi-cloud strategies to fail?
Wilcox: Over 91% of organizations are using at least two or more public cloud providers. While this brings benefits, it also introduces challenges in managing critical network services across different cloud environments:
- Human Mistakes Causing Outages: Managing multiple DNS systems increases the risk of human errors, leading to frequent and costly outages
- Increased Cost of Management and Automation: Running 4-5 different DNS systems drives up costs because you have to deal with multiple UIs, APIs, and automation tools. This adds complexity — requiring more time and resources to manage, increasing your operational expenses.
- Suboptimal Usage of Precious IP Blocks: Without a unified approach to managing IP block addresses, it’s easy to waste valuable resources as IP addresses might be allocated inefficiently.
- IP Conflicts and Overlaps Lead to Application Outages: The lack of visibility into overlapping or conflicting subnets in the cloud can cause application outages.
- Stale DNS Records and Zombie Servers: Outdated DNS records are a security risk, and unused servers — also known as zombie servers — continue to consume valuable resources.
Outages, wasted resources, increased security vulnerabilities, and rising operational costs are all reasons why hybrid multi-cloud strategies can be challenging.
The good news? These challenges can be addressed with a unified management solution that lets you monitor and manage all your assets in one place. This way, you reduce complexity, minimize errors, and keep everything running smoothly.
What are considered critical network services, and how do they impact cloud performance and availability? What role does DDI (DNS, DHCP, and IP address management) play in hybrid multi-cloud strategies?
Wilcox: Your ability to succeed in a cloud-driven world depends heavily on critical network services like DNS, DHCP, and IP Address Management (DDI). These are the services that make all network connections possible.
For example, DNS (Domain Name System) translates domain names into IP addresses. This allows users and applications to reach the desired destination, be it websites or cloud-based services like databases and APIs. When DNS fails, your applications can’t connect, which leads to performance issues and outages.
On the other hand, there is DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol), which assigns IP addresses to devices automatically. DHCP ensures that devices can communicate on the network — if DHCP is disrupted, devices also lose connectivity, preventing users from accessing cloud resources.
The last element that makes up DDI is IP Address Management (IPAM). This critical network service tracks and organizes the IP addresses across your network. Poor management here can lead to IP conflicts or wasted resources, both of which slow down performance and create avoidable network issues.
In a multi-cloud environment, managing these services gets more complex. Without having oversight of all your assets, it increases the risk of errors, inefficiencies, and security vulnerabilities, which directly impacts your cloud’s reliability and overall performance.
How can organizations simplify the management and security of critical network services?
Wilcox: Imagine managing critical network services like overseeing a large building. Traditionally, you’d juggle separate keys for each room, which might cause errors and confusion. Now, picture a smart digital panel at the entrance. This single interface shows the entire building layout, allowing you to control access everywhere with a few taps.
This is what a unified solution does for the management of critical network services like DNS, DHCP, and IP address management (IPAM). Instead of using multiple tools for different network parts, you get one comprehensive point of management. From this single point, you can monitor, control, and secure all critical network services, whether they’re on-site, in the cloud, or spread across locations.
This approach reduces mistakes, improves security, and helps different IT teams work together better — especially useful for NetOps, SecOps, and CloudOps teams who need to be agile and work smoothly together as networks become more complex.
Such unified solutions need to integrate critical network services into a single platform, providing a comprehensive view and centralized management of network resources.
At Infoblox, we go a step further by including tools for comprehensive asset discovery and visibility across on-premise, private, public and multi-cloud environments. This helps eliminate potential blind spots in complex environments. Our solutions are also offered through a SaaS model in addition to classic deployment methods, which simplifies deployment and gives businesses the flexibility they need.
This enables organizations to streamline their management of critical network services, improve collaboration between different parts of the IT team, and adapt more quickly to the evolving demands of modern, distributed networks.
