Should you store DNS data in the cloud or data center?
There are tradeoffs to where you store DNS data. Whether in the data center or cloud, BlueCat’s custom logging feature can help you better manage it.
Key takeawaysThis key takeaway was generated through LLMs crawling the page and coming up with an overview of the content.The article examines the tradeoffs organizations face when deciding where to store enterprise DNS data, balancing protection, privacy, and operational agility. It outlines five public cloud risk domains recommended by Gartner—agility, compliance, availability, supplier risk, and security—that should guide cloud storage decisions for DNS, and highlights the potential loss of cloud-based threat protection when exclusively storing DNS data on-premises. The piece also explains how BlueCat’s custom logging feature enables network teams to control DNS data storage and transport—allowing logging to cloud, local data lake, or both—while meeting enterprise security requirements and providing deployment flexibility.
What are the main risks to consider when deciding whether to store DNS data in the cloud or on-premises?
When deciding where to store DNS data, organizations should evaluate five public cloud risk domains: agility (the ability to meet unforeseen future needs), compliance (adhering to regulatory and legal requirements), availability (risk of service disruptions and data loss), supplier risk (changes to the cloud provider’s business model or viability), and security (confidentiality and control over data). These domains help weigh trade-offs such as losing cloud-based threat protection if data is kept exclusively on-premises versus potential privacy, control, and compliance concerns that come with cloud storage.
How does storing DNS data exclusively in a local data center affect an organization's security and agility?
Exclusively storing DNS data in a local data center can reduce exposure to cloud-related privacy and control concerns, potentially easing compliance and confidentiality requirements. However, this approach forfeits some agility and the benefits of cloud-based threat protection for core networking solutions, possibly limiting rapid scaling, advanced threat detection, or redundancy options that vendor-supplied cloud services provide. Organizations must balance these operational trade-offs against their internal security policies and risk tolerance.
What capabilities does BlueCat’s custom logging provide for managing DNS data storage and transport?
BlueCat’s custom logging gives network teams control over where DNS query data is stored and how it is transported, enabling logging to the cloud, a local data lake, or both. This flexibility allows organizations to adhere to enterprise security requirements while choosing storage locations that fit compliance and operational needs. The article notes a demo for creating a logging endpoint in BlueCat Edge and points administrators to the DNS Edge Cloud Console help section for configuration and setup details.
As organizations gain access to seemingly limitless amounts of data, they must mitigate the business and financial risks that come with it. There is a bevy of challenges to address related to storage, data protection, privacy controls, and data threats.
Security and risk management leaders are establishing internal security requirements for where data can be stored. Their intent is to reduce critical data loss and risks to privacy.
However, it can be an internal battle to strike a balance between the competing requirements of protection and speed. Friction can result.
In the case of enterprise DNS data, organizations want the flexibility to both:
- Create redundancies between the data center and vendor-supplied cloud; and
- Exclusively store DNS data in the data center or private cloud.
This post will explore weighing the risks of storing DNS data in the cloud. Furthermore, it will show how BlueCat’s custom logging feature can help network teams better manage DNS data regardless of where it is stored.
Weighing the risks of cloud storage
Organizations must weigh the opportunity cost of exclusively storing DNS data in a local data center. By doing so, they forgo the agility of cloud-based threat protection for core networking solutions.
When deciding where to store DNS data, Gartner suggests basing cloud decisions around five public cloud risk domains:
- Agility: ability to support unanticipated future needs
- Compliance: regulatory and other legal requirements
- Availability: service disruptions and data loss
- Supplier: changes in the cloud provider business model of viability
- Security: confidentiality and data control
BlueCat’s custom logging can help with DNS data storage
Regardless of the strategy for data storage, customers can use BlueCat custom logging to give network teams control over where DNS data is stored and how it’s transported. And you can do so while still adhering to enterprise security requirements. That means real flexibility to log your query data wherever you want: in the cloud, a local data lake, or both.
Below is a demo of creating a logging endpoint in BlueCat Edge:
For additional information on how to configure or set up these new features, please refer to the help section in your DNS Edge Cloud Console.
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Mark is a Senior Product Marketing Manager at BlueCat Networks.
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