Industry executives and experts share their predictions for 2026. Read them in this 18th annual VMblog.com series exclusive.
By Scott Fulton, Chief Product and Technology Officer, BlueCat
When outages occur or the network plods behind business needs, the root cause is often the network foundation. Core network services such as DNS, DHCP, and IP address management, collectively known as DDI, remain fragmented, manually operated, and largely unchanged over the past couple of decades.
Legacy DDI hasn’t kept pace with other network investments. That leaves enterprises with fragmented systems, security gaps, and other error-prone and time-consuming manual processes. In 2026, enterprises need to tackle these challenges head-on. Below are six predictions for this space:
Prediction #1: Legacy DDI will be recognized as a primary source of infrastructure risk
For years, DDI has been treated as background plumbing. The result has been sluggish network changes, security gaps, and costly downtime. The problem is that many organizations manage DNS and IP address space with spreadsheets or siloed tools, creating visibility gaps and raising the likelihood of human error. Research from Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) shows downtime can cost nearly $13,000 per minute, with 60% of outages traced to manual processes or insufficient visibility.
In 2026, IT leaders will acknowledge that legacy DDI is a leading contributor to outages and operational instability, especially in hybrid and multicloud environments.
Prediction #2: AI will transform infrastructure observability from reactive to diagnostic
Infrastructure network observability generates alerts without insight. Teams are swamped by signals. First, AI will help teams understand what’s happening with their infrastructure. It will draw on data from vendors, experts, and community knowledge to identify issues. Then it will provide IT teams with the steps needed to resolve (or prevent) the issue.
Over the next year, observability platforms with AI-driven automation will evolve into diagnostic systems, reducing false positives, speeding recovery, and laying the groundwork for self-healing enterprise infrastructure.
Prediction #3: Automation will shift toward human-governed intelligence
Automation is essential to modern enterprise infrastructure, but recent large-scale outages have revealed the risks of unchecked autonomy. When automation fails, it fails at scale, so the industry must shift to a more pragmatic model.
In 2026, successful organizations will adopt intelligent automation with humans in the loop. Systems will diagnose issues, propose remediation, and prepare changes, while humans retain authority over high-impact actions. This approach will balance speed with accountability.
Prediction #4: Cloud-managed platforms will become the default for core infrastructure services
Legacy infrastructure platforms were not designed for continuous delivery, real-time telemetry, or AI-driven insights. On-prem deployments slow innovation and obscure how systems are used.
As IT teams embed AI in infrastructure operations, cloud-managed delivery models will become the standard for critical services, including networking and observability. Some capabilities, especially those driven by large-scale analytics and LLMs, cannot operate effectively outside the cloud.
In 2026, cloud-managed infrastructure becomes a strategic requirement.
Prediction #5: The AI skills divide will become an infrastructure risk
There’s a generational divide in many enterprise infrastructure teams.
Early-career engineers have adopted generative AI tools but may place too much trust in the outputs. Seasoned professionals bring deep operational knowledge but doubt AI-generated insights.
The most effective teams will find a balance, investing in AI literacy, governance, and shared accountability to get the best of both worlds.
Prediction #6: DDI will evolve from a maintenance function to a strategic infrastructure foundation
Enhanced operational efficiency, improved security, faster network changes with less fear. These outcomes are possible only when teams unify DDI. Unified DDI platforms enhance visibility, reduce risk, and ensure the reliability and performance of core network services and everything that they support.
In 2026, enterprise leaders will recognize DDI modernization as a foundational investment. Those that embrace it will enable safer automation, faster innovation, and greater confidence in ongoing change across enterprise infrastructure.
Conclusion
The future of enterprise infrastructure is not about stacking new technologies on old ones. Your network foundation is what decides your future. Organizations that don’t unify DDI risk falling further behind as their network infrastructure becomes their weak link, impeding innovation and jeopardizing business needs. Those that fortify their foundation now can modernize and secure their infrastructure to optimize network performance and unlock innovation and growth at scale.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Scott Fulton is Chief Product and Technology Officer at BlueCat, where he leads product and technology strategy for secure, automated DNS, DHCP, and IP address management solutions supporting mission critical networks.
