Oh, who doesn’t love a good pun, especially when it involves my favorite meat? Alas, as much as I love steak, I’m really referring to table “stakes.” Network and security operations teams may be moderately successful with their existing basic, multi-vendor (or manual) management tools for DNS, DHCP, IPAM, and security, but they don’t realize that they are missing out on so many more benefits from a scalable, unified solution.
Companies small and large know that core network services and security tools are mission-critical and understood within IT security circles as basic building blocks available from all major technology vendors. In other words, core network services and security tools are table stakes—the minimum capabilities needed to field a competitive offering. No company would ever think to not have these capabilities implemented, but imagine a scenario that offers more control, more automation, and more security in a simplified, integrated environment. This is where good, better, best comes in: elevating your table “steaks” by methodically upgrading to “Wagyu beef” in a way that makes sense for your business needs and requirements. By taking small, incremental steps to ensure a solution that is the right size and right cost at the right time, you can realize premium quality and prime benefits. So, let’s get to the “meat” of the blog (OK, OK, I’m done with the puns) . . .
From Table Stakes to GOOD: Integrated DDI: DNS + DHCP + IPAM
While you understand the need for DNS, DHCP, and IPAM (aka DDI), an integrated DDI solution encompassing all three should be the foundation of your network. An integrated DDI solution centralizes the provisioning, management, and administration across the enterprise—at the data center, headquarters, branch locations, and home offices—in a single management interface.
Benefits of an integrated DDI solution include:
- Visibility: See any and all devices connected to the network to quickly analyze resources and users and troubleshoot network- and user-related issues.
- Automation: Avoid manual errors by automating IPAM and DNS workflows, ecosystem enrichment, and DevOps/NetOps/SecOps integration and orchestration.
- Control: Gain ubiquitous visibility, a single pane of glass for enterprise-wide IPAM and network discovery and intelligence.
And did you know, with an integrated DDI solution, Infoblox customers have seen up to a 343 percent ROI?!*
From Good to BETTER: Integrated DDI + DNS Security
Combining your integrated DDI solution with DNS Security enables organizations undertaking network modernization to leverage foundational DDI functions in ways that increase overall network security. According to a Forrester Consulting Thought Leadership Paper commissioned by Infoblox in July 2022, “20/20 Visibility Clarifies Network Security,” Infoblox discovered that 61 percent of IT leaders view network discovery for full visibility as the key to unlocking stronger security and that network and security integration is key to improving security visibility, operational efficiencies, and costs.
Benefits of adding on DNS Security include:
- Visibility and automation: Identify all devices across the enterprise and improve the productivity of SecOps through automated data sharing.
- Protection everywhere: Use DNS as a “signal” for security events and a control point for security enforcement across everything on the network.
- Reduced cost of threat defense: Offload blocking of known threats and preserve processing power of perimeter security.
In addition, Infoblox DNS Security customers have seen up to a 243 percent ROI** from their deployment.
From Better to BEST: Integrated DDI + DNS Security + Ecosystem Integrations
You can see that unifying integrated DDI and DNS Security provides proven, tangible benefits to NetOps and SecOps teams. But the real magic happens when you take advantage of ecosystem, or third-party, integrations—letting you do more with existing (and/or future) resources, thereby enhancing outcomes and accelerating your network and security efficiency and agility.
For example, network integrations can bring DNS, DHCP, and IP address management to third-party cloud automation, virtualization, and orchestration platforms so you can seamlessly automate the provisioning/de-provisioning life cycle of DNS records and IP addresses for virtual machines and containers.
Security integrations can offer a highly interconnected set of ecosystem capabilities that enable security teams to eliminate silos; optimize their security orchestration, automation and response solutions, and improve the ROI of their entire cyber security ecosystem. In this way, the time and cost of threat response are reduced through enhanced automation and real-time, two-way data sharing across the ecosystem.
Throw in other value-added services like discovery and control, traffic management, change management, advanced threat detection, and threat intelligence, and the ROI/cost-savings possibilities are endless.
Final Thoughts
Today’s NetOps and SecOps teams demand and deserve a tech stack that meets their personalized network and security needs. While a hodgepodge of tools gets them by, the benefits of an integrated good, better, best solution far outweigh any costs associated with a change. Infoblox’s integrated DDI, security, and ecosystem-friendly solutions offer users an experience that is:
- Simple: It’s transparent and seamless; it works no matter where your users are or what device they’re using.
- Reliable: It’s always on and always working.
- Scalable: It works for everyone—entire businesses, teams and customers.
- Flexible: It is available in on-premises, virtual, cloud-managed or hybrid offerings.
Why settle for table “steaks” when you can dine on Wagyu beef? Not ready to make that jump to “best”? With good and better options, Infoblox has many solutions that can satisfy your NetOps and SecOps appetite at a serving size and dining experience that works for you.
*Source: Forrester BloxOne® DDI Total Economic Impact (TEI) – Report, August 2022
**Source: Forrester BloxOne Threat Defense Total Economic Impact (TEI) – Report, February 2021
