2026 DDI Trends by EMA: Preparing Agentic Networks

Core network services – DNS, DHCP, and IP address management (DDI) – now sit at the heart of network resilience, security, and automation.

Yet the newly released 2026 DDI Trends report from Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) reveals a persistent gap between ambition and execution. Many organizations are struggling to translate investment into consistent outcomes.

With multicloud adoption and growing interest in AI-driven capabilities leading to increasingly distributed and fragmented environments, strong DDI capabilities have become more important than ever.

EMA’s 2026 DDI Trends provides guidance on improving visibility and strengthening automation to build a more resilient and future-ready network foundation.

Why You Need a DDI – Reasons for Enterprise DDI Investments

DDI has become a central control layer for modern, distributed networks. As organizations expand across hybrid and multicloud environments, they play a key role in maintaining connectivity, enforcing policies, and supporting reliable operations at scale.

EMA’s research shows investment is being driven by a combination of security, automation, and future-facing initiatives. More than half of organizations cite security risk reduction (53.7%) and network automation (51.7%) as primary priorities, while 48% point to AI as an increasingly important influence on network strategy. Cloud adoption and regulatory requirements continue to reinforce this shift.

As a result, the expectations of DDI platforms are shifting. Organizations are placing greater emphasis on integrated management, stronger security capabilities, and improved DNS observability, as well as AI-powered insights, signaling a move toward more proactive, intelligent network operations.

Challenges Faced by DDI Teams Today

Despite growing investment, many organizations are still struggling to operationalize their DDI deployments effectively. EMA reports that only 35% of IT teams consider their current DDI strategy fully successful.

This is largely driven by increasing complexity. As networks expand across hybrid and multicloud environments, maintaining consistent DDI management becomes significantly more difficult. Fragmented ownership across network, cloud, and security teams further compounds the issue, resulting in inconsistent policies and limited coordination.

There are several operational barriers adding to the challenge, with skills shortages, poor data quality, and legacy systems continuing to limit visibility and stall automation efforts.

As a result, many organizations lack a complete and reliable view of their network environment and are suffering from elevated cyber risk. EMA found that 58% of organizations have experienced downtime or performance issues, and 40% have suffered security breaches, due directly to DDI mismanagement.

Key Focus Areas Based on 2026 DDI Trends

The 2026 DDI Trends report highlights several focus areas for DDI teams to consider to turn their DDI strategy into a success in the year ahead.

1. Conquering Multicloud Usage with DNS and DHCP Service Management

Multicloud is now standard, with an overwhelming 95% of organizations using public cloud and 72% operating across multiple providers. However, the flexibility of this model has also introduced fragmented DNS and IP address management, reducing visibility and increasing operational risk. 

EMA reports that 97% of IT professionals see strong value in IPAM tools that provide overlay management of third-party DNS and DHCP services and bring more centralized control to their environments.

2. Asset Visibility and Data Confidence

Visibility remains a persistent challenge, with less than half (48%) of organizations fully confident that they have a complete view of their DDI assets. This lack of confidence feeds through into ineffective DDI strategies, with more security issues and a higher risk of downtime. 

To bridge this gap, organizations must adopt modern DDI platforms equipped with powerful automated discovery, tracking, and reporting capabilities to continuously identify and centralize the management of all IP addresses and DNS/DHCP services across the entire hybrid network infrastructure.

3. Network Source of Truth Capabilities

Alongside poor asset visibility, just 45% trust the accuracy of their Network Source of Truth (NSoT). These gaps limit automation and increase the risk of errors and security incidents. Strengthening data quality and establishing a unified, reliable view of network data is a priority for closing these gaps. 

Stronger DDI capabilities are essential here, as almost all successful NSoT strategies actively use DDI technology. DDI platforms play a pivotal role in establishing an NSoT because they house the critical data required to document and model the network, including IP address space, DNS records configurations, and network inventory.

4. API Use Cases and Integration Priorities

APIs are essential for network automation and integration with broader IT systems, but many organizations are still struggling to unlock their full potential. Just 41% rated their DDI solution’s APIs as “very good”, while 88% report challenges with documentation, performance, or completeness. Improving API quality is critical to enabling infrastructure-as-code and more efficient, integrated operations, as well as orchestrating integrated workflows.

5. From DDI Automation to “Agentic AI”

Extensive DDI management automation strongly correlates with overall DDI strategy success, yet very few enterprises have exceeded automating more than 80% of their DDI operations. 

At the same time, interest in AI is growing with more than 96% of organizations of IT teams seeing value in AI features from their DDI vendors and 43% calling it an essential consideration. However, rather than handing control over to fully autonomous networks, IT teams’ focus is on “Agentic AI”.  In this model, AI serves as a capability that actively assists human operators by intelligently detecting anomalies, predicting capacity constraints, and recommending configurations while keeping human operators in control.

6. DNS Security: Status and Requirements

Improving DNS security is another key priority with only 28% of organizations considering their DNS infrastructure fully secure, despite the use of existing protective measures. Common threats include DDoS attacks, malicious redirection, and data exfiltration. As attack methods evolve, including the potential use of AI, organizations are placing greater emphasis on DNS as a critical security layer. Strategies for securing DNS infrastructure must include DNS traffic encryption (DoT/DoH), DNSSEC deployment, and dedicated DNS firewalls backed by robust threat intelligence to be effective.

7. Overcoming Stalled IPv6 Adoption

Finally, IPv6 adoption is progressing slowly, with only 33% of organizations reporting extensive use in production. IPv6 is vital for the support of emerging technologies, such as AI and the Internet of Things, as well as enhancing network security and  long-term scalability, but adoption is often delayed by cost, complexity, and limited in-house expertise. Smart DDI solutions which simplify the transition from IPv4 to IPv6 are key for future growth.

Enterprise Platform Requirements for Modern DDI Solutions

As organizations address these challenges, there are clear expectations on what a DDI platform needs to deliver.

At a minimum, enterprises require integrated management across DNS, DHCP, and IP address management, providing a unified view of network data and resources rather than siloed operations.

Scalability, performance, and resilience are also critical, particularly as networks expand across hybrid and multicloud environments. Platforms must handle growing volumes of data and queries without compromising availability. Security remains a key priority, with growing emphasis on built-in DNS security features.

At the same time, there are growing expectations around future-proofing DDI technology to keep up with a shifting market. API-first design is essential to support network automation and integration with cloud, security, and infrastructure-as-code tools. As noted by EMA’s research, there is widespread recognition that overlay management for third-party DNS and DHCP services is an essential for an IPAM tool.

Finally, while interest in AI and advanced capabilities is increasing, most organizations remain focused on establishing a stable, reliable foundation for network operations.

DDI Investment Outcomes and Measures of Success

Those organizations that are successfully modernizing their DDI technology are already seeing measurable business results. EMA reports improvements in IT productivity (62%), network resilience (52%), and overall security posture (50%), reflecting the broader impact of DDI beyond day-to-day operations.

These outcomes are closely linked to higher levels of maturity. Organizations seeing the greatest value tend to have more advanced automation, stronger integration with cloud environments, and well-developed APIs that support visibility and orchestration across systems.

They also tend to report fewer outages and security incidents, reinforcing the connection between integration, visibility, and control. Success is increasingly measured by improvements in reliability, agility, and risk reduction.

Recommendations for Improving Your DDI Strategy

DDI is now central to network operations, but many organizations have yet to fully align their strategies with this reality. EMA’s 2026 DDI Directions research highlights a clear gap between the importance placed on DDI and the ability to manage it effectively in complex, distributed environments.

Closing this gap requires a more integrated approach. Organizations must prioritize comprehensive network visibility through asset discovery tools, track all assets in IPAM, and implement DNS/DHCP overlay management. They should leverage DDI to build an NSoT, invest in automation supported by reliable APIs, and strengthen DNS security. These capabilities are essential to maintaining control as networks continue to evolve.

Ultimately, modernizing DDI is a foundational step toward building more resilient, secure, and adaptable networks.