DDI Central has officially launched its latest version, 5.1 (Service Pack 5001), bringing a powerhouse of automation, real-time insights, security, and efficiency to DNS, DHCP, and IPAM (DDI) management. Packed with features and enhancements such as advanced REST APIs, WebSocket-based real-time collaboration, enhanced analytics, and intuitive tools, this update is designed to streamline network operations, enhance visibility, and drive network performance like never before.
For a seamless upgrade, please ensure you follow the sequential upgrade path based on your current build number. You can refer to the Service Pack page for detailed instructions.
Here’s everything new in DDI Central 5.1 and how each feature transforms the way you manage your network!
1. Seamless automation with APIs that do more
DDI Central 5.1 introduces dedicated REST API suites for Linux and Windows, enabling seamless automation, third-party integrations, and custom workflows to streamline DDI operations. These APIs give administrators and developers full control over DDI management, making it easy to scale automation and optimize network performance.
With full CRUD (create, read, update, delete) capabilities, developers can:
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Manage zones, DNS records, DHCP scopes, DDNS domains, leases, and more.
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Automate bulk configurations and retrieve centralized audit logs, lease data, and IP inventory stats.
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Receive API responses in your preferred language, with support for English, Japanese, French, Spanish, German, Chinese, and Arabic.
2. Effortless IPv4 and IPv6 planning with built-in subnet calculators
Avoid IP conflicts, wasted address space, and routing inefficiencies with DDI Central’s new built-in IPv4 and IPv6 subnet calculator. This powerful tool helps administrators plan subnets accurately, identify available IPs instantly, and prevent misconfigurations, ensuring optimized address allocation and a more efficient network.
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Retrieve network information faster: Make quicker data-driven decisions with instant subnet calculations.
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Eliminate manual errors: Prevent misconfigurations and ensure precise IP allocations.
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Optimize network performance: Control traffic flow, limit the number of devices per subnet, and enhance speed and efficiency.
With precise calculations and subnet breakdowns, DDI Central 5.1 simplifies IP planning, enhances scalability, and ensures a well-structured, high-performing network.
3. Real-time collaboration with a WebSockets-enabled UI
Ensure seamless teamwork with instant UI notifications when multiple users modify the same DNS or DHCP resources. With real-time user activity alerts, teams can coordinate effortlessly, prevent accidental overwrites, and maintain full visibility—boosting efficiency and accuracy in multi-admin environments.
4. Accelerate DNS resolutions for Windows clusters with Stub Zones and Forwarders
With support for Stub Zones and DNS Forwarders, administrators can streamline query processing, reduce query overhead, and optimize DNS traffic for faster, more efficient name resolutions in Windows clusters. This enhancement provides greater flexibility and control over Windows cluster DNS configurations, ensuring efficient record delegation and improved overall performance.
5. Stay ahead with enhanced real-time alerts
In addition to timely email alerts, a dedicated UI alerts page is now available in DDI Central, providing instant visibility into critical network events, such as:
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DNS firewall blocklist violations: Detect and block unauthorized access attempts.
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New IP leases and MAC address detections: Track device connections in real time. Detect high lease activity and prevent IP pool exhaustion.
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DNS and DHCP service failures: Get notified of outages and initiate rapid troubleshooting.
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IP utilization and query anomalies: Monitor address pool exhaustion and unusual activity.
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Customizable query thresholds: Quickly detect DNS abuse, mitigate potential threats, and ensure peak performance, empowering proactive network security and optimization.
By automating alerts and enabling real-time insights, DDI Central empowers proactive network security, optimized resource management, and seamless operations.
6. Optimized static lease administration with smart static IP verification
DDI Central takes proactive static IP or subnet management to the next level by automatically pinging all static IPs in real time, ensuring that every address within a defined static subnet is active, responsive, and conflict-free. This intelligent monitoring helps prevent connectivity issues, enhance network accountability, and minimize downtime.
Simply define a static subnet, and let DDI Central do the rest! Say goodbye to outdated static IP assignments—with real-time, periodic pings, DDI Central detects inactive or conflicting addresses, giving network administrators proactive visibility into static IP connectivity issues before they escalate:
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Instantly identify inactive IPs: Prevent assigning unresponsive or conflicting IPs to critical devices.
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Boost network accountability: Ensure admins can trace and troubleshoot connectivity gaps in static subnets.
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Reduce operational risks: Minimize downtime by flagging disconnected or unavailable static IPs before use.
For example, if your data center has statically provisioned devices, DDI Central automatically pings each static IP within a static subnet to check its availability. If an IP is inactive or down, administrators are alerted to investigate the device or server status, preventing connectivity disruptions.
7. Standardize network settings with cluster-wide global configurations
Effortlessly manage multiple network sites through DDI Central’s unified interface. Create custom clusters and consolidate global configurations across all DNS and DHCP servers within each cluster.
By automating and centralizing configuration management, DDI Central:
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Ensures consistent network policies across all locations.
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Eliminates repetitive manual setups, reducing administrative workload.
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Minimizes configuration errors, improving network stability.
This streamlined approach enhances operational efficiency, maintains network integrity, and simplifies administration across distributed environments, giving IT teams greater control and visibility.
8. Hierarchical IP management with multi-level nested supernets
Create supernets and nest them within larger supernets to organize massive IP blocks with multi-level hierarchies. This game-changing feature helps enterprises manage complex IP structures efficiently, enabling scalable IP allocation, better segmentation, optimized resource utilization, and streamlined, granular IP planning.
9. Deeper DNS analytics for unmatched domain performance visibility
DDI Central’s DNS analytics modules now help you see every query, every response, and every IP or host accessing a zone—every time. Here’s how it drills down valuable information for effective visibility and troubleshooting:
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Track response patterns (NOERROR, NXDOMAIN, SERVFAIL, and more) for in-depth zone performance analysis.
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Identify host MAC addresses instantly for rapid troubleshooting.
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Monitor the queries to non-hosted public domains accessed by the users in your infrastructure with detailed KPIs.
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Search for specific IP addresses and review the queries made by those IP address for quick user insights.
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Export query analytics as CSV or PDF files for better reporting and long-term tracking.
This level of granular analytics ensures optimized DNS performance and proactive issue resolution.
10. Secure network visibility with zero-risk user roles
In a secure network environment, not every user requires administrative control. To enhance security and maintain system integrity, DDI Central introduces zero-risk user roles—Auditor and Guest—designed for users who need visibility without modification privileges. These roles ensure that stakeholders, auditors, and compliance teams can access crucial network data without compromising configurations or security policies.
11. Advanced logging and real-time log monitoring for ISC BIND and DHCP servers
DDI Central integrates Rsyslog and live logs for Linux-based ISC BIND and ISC DHCP servers, enabling real-time monitoring and centralized log aggregation. Live logs provide instant visibility into DNS queries, DHCP lease events, and system activities, helping administrators troubleshoot faster, detect anomalies, and optimize performance.
Rsyslog ensures secure, scalable log storage, consolidating data across multiple servers for efficient analysis and compliance tracking.
With these capabilities, network teams can enhance security, streamline troubleshooting, and maintain high-performance DNS and DHCP services.
12. Take full control of how your network syncs and stores data
DDI Central 5.1 gives administrators unmatched flexibility in managing data synchronization and storage, ensuring real-time accuracy and optimized performance.
Here’s why this feature is essential:
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Set precise refresh intervals for DNS, DHCP, DDNS, and lease discovery to ensure real-time synchronization.
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Customize retention policies for leases, queries, and audit logs to optimize storage and compliance.
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Enhance performance and visibility with tailored data life cycle management.
With fine-tuned polling and retention settings, organizations can align data storage with compliance needs, improve efficiency, and maintain historical insights. This feature puts administrators in full control over DDI Central’s operations, ensuring seamless synchronization, streamlined resource management, and enhanced visibility across the entire network.
13. Effortlessly onboard large scale DHCP scopes and reservations with CSV imports
DDI Central now supports bulk importing of IPv4 and IPv6 subnets, multicast subnets, and DHCP reservations or host configurations via quick CSV file uploads. This powerful feature streamlines large-scale DHCP scopes onboarding, enabling administrators to quickly add multiple subnets and reservations in a single operation.
By minimizing manual data entry and reducing configuration errors, this enhancement significantly boosts efficiency, accuracy, and speed, ensuring seamless deployment and management of DHCP resources across the network.
14. Service reconfiguration and service rediscovery for windows clusters
DDI Central introduces automated service recovery and real-time synchronization for Windows-based DNS and DHCP servers, ensuring minimal downtime and accurate configurations.
Service reconfiguration for data recovery: Instantly replace failed or ejected DNS and DHCP servers with a new server using the same IP address. A one-click Reconfig option restores all server data, eliminating manual recovery efforts and ensuring continuous network stability.
One-click DNS and DHCP rediscovery: Detect and sync external DNS and DHCP changes made via Windows Desktop UI, PowerShell commands, or other tools. Admins can rediscover configurations from the targeted server with a single click, maintaining real-time accuracy and centralized visibility. This keeps DDI Central updated without manual intervention.
Additionally for DNS, just clicking on a zone name will trigger zone rediscovery, fetching the latest settings from the primary server. This feature provides real-time synchronization, centralized visibility, and consistent network management.
With automated recovery and effortless sync, DDI Central simplifies server management, enhances resilience, and ensures always-on network operations.
