DDI UNCOVERED Solution Overview

for

Infrastructure as Code
Digital transformation relies on fast and iterative application development which directly impacts business processes in order to make them more
efficient, more customer or user oriented and ideally speed up business.

Deploying applications at a high pace requires dynamic infrastructure management which represents a real challenge where automation and
software defined approaches are major pillars. The move from manual operations to Infrastructure as Code (IaC) represents a real transformation,
from the technology to the implied workers as complementary skills are required.

Infrastructure automation takes advantage of reliable and consolidated data in a repository acting as the Source of Truth. The DDI (DNS-DHCP-
IPAM) solution is the data foundation of automation and IaC initiatives. DDI provides all IP data mandatory to deploy, run and retire ephemeral
infrastructures. It helps in the planning for massive deployments and, with the use of rich metadata and internal automation, can orchestrate
many steps of the digitalisation processes.

Solution Benefits
SIMPLIFIED NETWORK MANAGEMENT IP data lake for simplified operations and automation
BETTER AUTOMATION OF IT PROCESSES rich metadata providing multiple facets

EA SY ECOSYSTEM INTEGRATION simple-to-use open API and webhook

OPERATIONAL TIME SAVINGS consolidated data repository for infrastructure programming
COST SAVINGS DUE TO FASTER DEVELOPMENT DNS/DHCP service automation speeds up network coding

Business Challenges
Organizations frequently develop software in cases where their ap- When an operation is repeatable, infrastructure as code is a valuable
plications contain specificities preventing them to be proposed as concept to put in place. Easing infrastructure development, scripting,
standard SaaS solutions. Systems engineers are used to developing coding or using a high level configuration language needs valuable
scripts to ease their operations, but in network teams this is less com- data as input, as well as a solution for storing all generated data.
mon. The main challenge of process automation - for sustained rapid
Starting an automation journey can be seen as complex. It should
application development - is for I&O teams to first think of how to
not try to encompass every action but rather first focus on simple
automate processes rather than trying to perform each action ma-
and repeatable ones, following the Pareto 80/20 principle. To ease
nually. It is a radical change in the culture and mindset which requires
the ramp up phase, a framework could be chosen and shared with all
training, skills and processes. The criticality of network infrastructure
I&O teams in order to engage people, share the knowledge and apply
often causes reluctance to automate, due to fear of losing control of
good practices. Many solutions are available on the market, mostly
processes and putting the network at risk.
open source based which eases getting support from the commu-
As infrastructure is mandatory to modern application hosting for cost nity and reuse of functional code. But very frequently data is key, so
optimization, automatic scaling and multiple environments manage- a strong repository brings significant value in the infrastructure as
ment, it is important to move in the automation and code direction. code process.

www.efficientip.com
Solution Overview | Infrastructure as Code

Main Features of SOLIDserver DDI for IaC

The EfficientIP DDI IPAM is a repository of information related to the IP Data Repository open to the automation ecosystem
network world. It consolidates the IP addressing plan, technical infor-
The SOLIDserver IPAM is easy to access from the ecosystem, most
mation like VLAN and VRF, list of devices, list of networking equip-
exchanges can be made through standard API and any action that
ment, list of applications, network users and more. This is why the
can be taken through the GUI is also available through an API call.
IPAM is considered as the IP Source of Truth.
To allow quick development and test, the SOLIDserver ecosystem
proposes several snippets, code examples and libraries for the most
Accurate dynamic data repository for automation
common languages in order to quickly develop infrastructure code
Acting as a central and reliable repository means data are always and automate the initial processes.
available and accurate. There should be systematic actions in all the
In addition the embedded IPAM is very flexible and proposes multiple
infrastructure code to read information considered as truthful but
ways to interact with its ecosystem. It’s not always a matter of ex-
also an easy way to add and update information in order to maintain
changing data through the northbound API, sometimes the DDI solu-
the high level of data quality for the entire IT ecosystem. The ability
tion needs to inform tools in the ecosystem for them to perform spe-
of the IPAM module embedded in the SOLIDserver DDI solution to
cific tasks on their own. This is why SOLIDserver also offers an event
dynamically manage and store infrastructure data is a strong enabler
based framework allowing notifications to be pushed to peers, either
for any automation coding initiatives.
through API calls or through an enterprise service bus implementing
The rich data lake proposed by the DDI solution can even be extended a publish/subscribe mechanism.
through open metadata that can be associated with any kind of ob-
ject in order to bring new business or functional facets and eases au-
tomation. Finding an object in the DDI, thanks to metadata, therefore
becomes more simple, as the powerful filtering mechanism reduces Key Takeaways
data set size for each operation. This rich data set enables numerous
IT automation use cases. Infrastructure as Code proposes a powerful way to improve
efficiency for I&O teams by suppressing simple tasks and
DDI integrated automation for simplified coding initiatives allowing time to be spent on higher value ones. Each
In addition, the DDI automation directly available within the solution manual action which is automated directly brings many
brings an easy and robust way to manage DNS records, network zo- benefits: reproducibility, execution quality, ability to be
ning, DHCP ranges and device pools. That simplifies considerably any launched by anyone in the team, execution time control,
new infrastructure development and eases ramping up the skills of easy troubleshooting and cost optimization.
the whole I&O team when coding is not in their nature.
Linking infrastructure code with the DDI data lake is
Coding in the infrastructure does not need to be rigorous, it can be
mandatory for scalability and for allowing I&O teams
performed through simple scripting using a high level language or
solution like Ansible or Terraform. It can be implemented in an inter- to have more and more automated processes for their
preted language like Python or in more advanced system languages infrastructure components. This is a good way to start
like Golang or Rust for more complex production workflows, perfor- or continue the automation journey, with rock solid
mances or management rules. It can also use very accessible solu- foundations on which infrastructure can operate and be
tions like Rundeck to bring automated actions to operators and ease adapted to help digital transformation of your organization.
their day to day activities. Each time a new piece of software is deve-
loped or improved and used by I&O teams, time is freed up to im-
prove the service and develop other parts of the automation. This is
a virtuous circle.

REV: C-210106
As one of the world’s fastest growing DDI vendors, EfficientIP helps organizations drive business efficiency through agile, secure and reliable network infrastructures. Our unified management framework for DNS-DHCP-IPAM (DDI) and network configurations
ensures end-to-end visibility, consistency control and advanced automation. Additionally, our unique 360° DNS security solution protects data confidentiality and application access from anywhere at any time. Companies rely on us to help control the risks and
reduce the complexity of challenges they face with modern key IT initiatives such as cloud applications, virtualization, and mobility. Institutions across a variety of industries and government sectors worldwide rely on our offerings to assure business continuity,
reduce operating costs and increase the management efficiency of their network and security teams.
Copyright © 2021 EfficientIP, SAS. All rights reserved. EfficientIP and SOLIDserver logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of EfficientIP SAS. All registered trademarks are property of their respective owners. EfficientIP assumes no responsibility for any
inaccuracies in this document or for any obligation to update information in this document.

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