The release of DDI Central version 4.0.2 delivers a suite of new features designed to streamline network management and increase the efficiency of various functions across network sites. If you’ve already installed DDI Central, please upgrade to Service Pack Version 4002 to avail the new features.

Download a free, 30-day trial now to explore how DDI Central can transform your network.

Here’s what you can expect from the latest version of DDI Central:

Scheduled DNS and DHCP objects 

DDI Central now allows network administrators to set schedules for creating or modifying DHCP scopes and DNS records. This feature focuses on enhancing network management through automation and strategic timing, which is crucial for planning and rolling out network configurations at predetermined times.

Scheduling a DNS A record in ManageEngine DDI Central

Scheduling a DHCP subnet in ManageEngine DDI Central

Benefits of scheduling DNS and DHCP objects

This features provides several key benefits to organizations:

1. Enhanced operational efficiency: Administrators can now schedule DHCP scopes or DNS records for later time or off-peak hours, all while ensuring smooth network operation during busy periods without manual intervention.

2. Uninterrupted network services: By scheduling configuration changes during low-impact times, network infrastructure updates occur without disrupting user activities, maintaining continuous business operations.

3. Reliability and performance: Automating DNS and DHCP tasks reduces human error, ensuring consistent, error-free updates that enhance network performance and reliability.

4. Cost efficiency: Reducing manual tasks allows for more efficient IP resource allocation, freeing staff to focus on strategic initiatives instead of routine maintenance.

5. Compliance and security: Scheduled updates support compliance with security standards by systematically planning and documenting all network configuration changes.

Scheduled reports 

Version 4.0.2 introduces scheduled reports for DHCP subnets and DNS zones, specifically designed for IT administrators to provide essential data analytics that enhance network management and strategic decision-making. The subnet reports provide an analytical snapshot of each subnet capacity, availability status of iP addresses aiding in advanced capacity planning and monitoring IP utilization thresholds over time.

Additionally, DNS Zone reports provide analytical visual breakdown updates of these through scheduled reports that help administrators understand traffic patterns and user behavior to enhance strategic decision-making based on data-driven insights.

The Scheduled Reports feature delivers significant advantages for network management.

1. Efficient subnet capacity planning: Provides visual snapshots of DHCP subnet capacities, aiding in resource optimization and future planning.

2. Continuous subnet monitoring: Tracks IP utilization to maintain network efficiency and preemptively address allocation issues, preventing problems before they impact network performance.

3. DNS traffic monitoring: Analyzes DNS zone data to understand traffic patterns,  and user behavior, supporting tailored improvements for each zone.

4. Strategic decisions: Enables data-driven decision-making for network adjustments and enhancements.

5. Compliance support: Assists in meeting compliance standards by documenting network status and changes, useful for audits and reviews.

6. Automated backups: DDI Central enables users to specify the number of versions of automatically generated reports to be saved or backed up. For example, if a reporting frequency of both daily and weekly is selected, and the number of backup reports is set to 5, DDI Central will maintain the five most recent daily and weekly reports as backups in the UI.

   

   Store automated backups for DDI Central reports

7. Downloadable reports: Administrators can download reports from the UI to local devices for offline access, ensuring availability of critical data even without internet connectivity.
   

   Accessing and downloading backed-up reports from the DDI Central UI

How to to schedule DNS, DHCP configurations, and reports in ManageEngine DDI Central

Other new features 

Static subnet and lease management 

The new version simplifies IP management for critical devices that require fixed IP addresses like routers, access points, printers, and more. With the new static lease and static subnet management capabilities, all the static leases that are managed by the administrators in extensive spreadsheets can be directly imported into designated fields or custom fields without the need to set up static subnets manually. This enables IT administrators to manage them directly from DDI Central and export these any time as spreadsheets.

Import and setup static leases in Manageengine DDI Central

Third-party zone migrations 

DDI Central serves as a powerful tool for organizations managing multiple domains across various hosted DNS providers. This comprehensive network management solution seamlessly migrates and enables you to manage the DNS zones hosted with external cloud vendors such as Google Cloud DNS, Cloudflare, Microsoft Azure, and AWS Route 53 directly through DDI Central. The centralized management approach eliminates the need to switch between different platforms and streamlines migrations and bulk transfers, ensuring smooth transitions with minimal downtime.

By centralizing DNS management within a single interface, organizations can reduce operational complexities, minimize the risk of configuration errors, and enhance overall efficiency. It enables you to create new domains and manage existing zones directly from its user interface. DDI Central synchronizes all the record updates to the vendor’s servers at regular, short intervals, maintaining consistency across your DNS configurations.

When you create new domains or update records, DDI Central immediately syncs these changes with the vendor’s server, ensuring that your DNS records are always up-to-date and accurately reflect your current configurations.

DDI Central also provides the ability to track audit trails for actions performed on the resource records of these imported domains, thus maintaining complete visibility and management within the product.

Manage zones hosted with external cloud DNS providers like Google Cloud DNS, AWS Route53, Cloudflare, and Microsoft Azure directly with ManageEngine DDI Central as the single point of management

PXE boot templates 

With the latest version, 4.0.2, DDI Central delivers enhanced support for Pre-boot Execution Environments (PXE). Users can now create and clone templates specifically designed for PXE clients. The values from these templates can be easily imported into the client class. This streamlines the process of configuring client classes to automatically detect and match devices of a certain type, initiate boot processes, transfer configuration files, and seamlessly integrate a huge fleet of devices into the network. This results in faster and more reliable device setup.

PXE Boot configurations via user-friendly and efficient templates in ManageEngine DDI Central

Whether through better scheduling, streamlined migrations, or improved IP management, DDI Central version 4.0.2 is set to revolutionize the way networks are managed in dynamic and demanding environments. The primary goal of this release is to boost efficiency in network management and establish DDI Central as the single point of management for an organization’s IP network infrastructure, accommodating a variety of resources.