While Dutch universities and higher education institutions continue to invest heavily in cloud transformation, identity management and zero trust, a critical part of the digital infrastructure often remains overlooked: DNS and DDI. These are services that rarely attract attention as long as they function properly, yet any disruption or abuse is immediately felt across education, research and operations.

This is far from a theoretical concern. DNS has become one of the primary attack vectors used by cybercriminals. Phishing, malware distribution and data exfiltration frequently begin with what appears to be an innocent DNS query. In environments characterised by open networks, large numbers of guest users and extensive BYOD usage — all typical of higher education — this creates a level of exposure that cannot be ignored.

The technology is in place, the focus is not

It is therefore no coincidence that almost all large universities and higher education institutions in the Netherlands rely on advanced DNS and DDI solutions, often built on Infoblox. On paper, the foundations are solid. In practice, however, this tells only part of the story.

What we frequently observe is that these platforms were implemented with care at some point in the past, but gradually slipped into the background. Configurations age, security features are only partially enabled, and valuable insights from DNS telemetry remain unused. This is rarely due to a lack of awareness, but rather the reality of IT departments whose agendas are dominated by continuous change programmes.

Structural capacity constraints

Cloud migrations, application modernisation, network redesign and increasing compliance requirements compete for attention. Optimising and operating DDI environments requires time, focus and specialised expertise — resources that are structurally scarce within higher education IT teams.

The result is a paradox: a business-critical foundation that appears stable, yet quietly loses effectiveness over time. DNS is managed reactively, while its real value lies in prevention.

Want to learn more about DNS, DHCP and IPAM? Read our resource What is DDI.

DNS as a security layer, not a network utility

That preventive role is still widely underestimated. DNS is no longer just a technical networking service; it has become a fully-fledged security layer. When properly configured, DNS security can block malicious communication before endpoints are compromised and provide early indicators for detection and incident response teams.

For higher education institutions, where visibility and control over end users is inherently limited, this capability represents a powerful but often underutilised means of risk reduction.

Outsourcing operations without losing control

An increasing number of institutions are therefore looking for ways to manage this foundation more structurally, without adding further pressure to their internal IT organisations. Managed DDI is playing a growing role in this context. By outsourcing day-to-day operations, monitoring and continuous optimisation to specialised partners, institutions ensure stability while keeping pace with an evolving threat landscape.

For organisations that are not yet ready for full outsourcing, targeted improvement projects offer an alternative. Periodic health checks, configuration audits or the activation of existing security features often deliver tangible improvements with relatively limited effort.

Experience as a differentiator

Within the Nomios Group, deep expertise has been built over recent years in this domain, particularly around Infoblox deployments in complex higher education and enterprise environments. That experience consistently shows that the difference between a “running” DDI environment and an effective security layer rarely lies in new technology, but almost always in attention, configuration and continuous management.

An uncomfortable conclusion

DNS and DDI are seldom the subject of strategic debate, yet they form one of the quietest and most decisive elements of digital resilience in higher education. Precisely because they seem so self-evident, they deserve far more attention than they currently receive.

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