For decades, enterprise networks were built around an HQ and branch topology of on-prem equipment. Those days are now over. What began as straightforward data center management now sprawls across AWS, Azure, on-premises infrastructure, and countless edge deployments. The DNS, DHCP, and IP Address Management (DDI) systems that organizations deployed years ago were built for that simpler world. Today's reality tells a different story.
Multi-cloud adoption has turned every organization into a multi-vendor shop, whether they planned for it or not. This creates a fundamental visibility problem that legacy DDI solutions struggle to address. To understand how vendors are tackling this challenge, The Tolly Group spoke with Pete Sclafani, VP of Professional Services and Head of ProVision Product at IPv4.Global. Previously at 6connect, he joined the Hilco Global team in April 2025.
The Multi-Vendor Reality
The most pressing challenge Sclafani encounters isn't exotic networking protocols or bleeding-edge technology. It's visibility across heterogeneous environments. "The biggest thing that we've run into is visibility," Sclafani explains. "It's no longer just about IP addressing or DNS or DHCP. It's about managing heterogeneous environments where they're all mixed."
This multi-vendor reality has migrated from service provider and MSP environments down to standard enterprises. "Legacy approaches have been more about, hey, just buy all of our stuff and we're good. And I think that's not realistic today," Sclafani notes. Organizations sign contracts with a primary vendor, then discover they're running AWS, Azure, and on-premises infrastructure simultaneously. The question becomes: how do you manage DDI across all these platforms without drowning in separate consoles and disconnected data?
The Implementation Bottleneck
Traditional DDI migrations follow a predictable, painful pattern. Vendors require organizations to replace their entire infrastructure to realize value from the new platform. This all-or-nothing approach creates the biggest bottleneck IPv4.Global observes in the market.
"Typical things are, hey, for you to see value out of platform X, you have to deploy platform X and replace all of your infrastructure," Sclafani explains. "And we don't think that's the way to do it." The problem isn't just technical complexity. It's the business risk of wholesale infrastructure replacement and the operational disruption that inevitably follows.
An Overlay Approach
IPv4.Global's ProVision addresses this through an overlay architecture that provides visibility before requiring commitment. The system can operate in read-only mode, connecting to existing IPAMs, DNS platforms, and cloud environments without disrupting current operations. "We can tie into 20 different IPAMs or 12 different DNS platforms, but then they can actually see what's going on first and then they can make incremental changes as needed," Sclafani notes.
This incremental approach allows organizations to start with visibility, identify problem areas, and migrate specific components strategically rather than facing forced infrastructure replacement. Legacy tools that nobody likes? Migrate those first. Well-functioning systems? Leave them in place while the overlay provides unified management.
Handling Multi-Cloud Complexity
Multi-cloud environments create unique challenges around overlapping IP space, synchronization, and metadata management. ProVision's technology originated in service provider environments where managing duplicate IP blocks for different customers was standard practice. This heritage provides capabilities most DDI platforms lack.
"We're one of the few platforms that manage overlapping and duplicate IP space very elegantly," Sclafani explains. "If Amazon gives you the same internal IP space as your Azure, we don't care. We'll still keep it straight for you. You can use metadata to make them unique."
This metadata intelligence extends throughout the platform. Organizations can customize scanning schedules based on workload dynamics, running frequent scans on rapidly changing production environments while checking static workloads daily. The system performs DNS verification checks across all connected environments, ensuring zones and records propagate correctly without manual validation.
Modern Architecture Advantages
Despite operating in the DDI space for years, ProVision maintains what Sclafani describes as a surprisingly modern code base. The platform supports containerized deployment on Kubernetes, bare-metal installations, and fully hosted cloud offerings. "Having a flexible approach to things really helps," Sclafani notes. "As long as the problem is consistent, we can figure out the right solution for you."
This deployment flexibility matters for organizations with diverse infrastructure requirements and budget models. A service provider might deploy clustered hardware for maximum control, while an enterprise could adopt the hosted offering to eliminate infrastructure management entirely.
Customer-Driven Development
One distinctive aspect of IPv4.Global's ProVision product strategy is their development roadmap. Approximately 80% of feature releases originate from customer requests rather than internal product vision. "We do listen to customers quite a bit," Sclafani emphasizes. "That's a bit different than, hey, guess what? We made a decision about a product that's going to affect all the customers."
This approach creates a feedback loop where the platform evolves based on real operational needs rather than vendor assumptions about market direction. Combined with Hilco Global's strategic guidance, ProVision balances customer-driven feature development with longer-term innovation initiatives.
Quantifying Value & Pricing Flexibility
ROI metrics differ significantly between service providers and enterprises. Service providers focus on time to revenue, the speed at which new services can be provisioned and monetized. "The faster we can provision something, the sooner we can charge for it," Sclafani explains. "That's a very easy equation to have."
For enterprises, the calculation centers on time savings and operational efficiency. Sclafani describes the "chair switching" problem, where administrators constantly shift between multiple consoles and interfaces. "Instead of having an IPAM tab open and then a DNS tab or an XY, let's just smoosh that, make it into a workflow and automate as much of that as possible using human friendly features."
To support these different value models, IPv4.Global maintains both subscription and perpetual licensing options while many vendors move exclusively to subscriptions. "If a CFO insists on it, what are you going to do?" Sclafani notes pragmatically. The perpetual option includes annual support fees, while subscription models provide straightforward CapEx planning.
The company's diverse product portfolio, including their ManyCast DNS offering, allows flexible bundling. Some products naturally fit subscription models, while others support perpetual licensing. This flexibility helps close deals that might otherwise stall on procurement preferences.
Roadmap: Integration and Intelligence
Looking ahead, ProVision is expanding integration with configuration management systems like Ansible and Terraform. The platform already maintains extensive network data, making deeper automation integrations a natural evolution. Given that IPv4.Global operates within Hilco Global's Capital Solutions division, which includes IPv4 brokerage services, the roadmap includes capabilities where ProVision's IPAM tool could identify available IP space that organizations might monetize by leasing unused allocations.
The team has also been experimenting with AI and machine learning for configuration management. "We're trying to be very pragmatic with our use of AI," Sclafani explains. "We're not trying to say it's a catch-all, it'll just solve everything for you, because we've seen it not do that already in our testing." The focus remains on specific, repeatable use cases where AI delivers measurable value rather than pursuing AI capabilities as marketing differentiation.
The Path Forward
Multi-vendor, multi-cloud environments have become the default enterprise reality rather than the exception. Organizations need DDI solutions that acknowledge this complexity rather than forcing consolidation that conflicts with business requirements. IPv4.Global's ProVision overlay approach provides a practical migration path that preserves existing investments while delivering unified visibility and management across heterogeneous infrastructure.
For organizations struggling with DDI visibility across multiple clouds and platforms, the question isn't whether they need better integration but how quickly they can implement solutions that bridge these gaps without disrupting operations.
Key Takeaways
Multi-cloud adoption has made multi-vendor DDI environments standard even at mid-sized enterprises
Traditional all-or-nothing migration approaches create implementation bottlenecks that delay DDI modernization
Overlay architectures provide visibility before requiring infrastructure replacement
Managing overlapping IP space and metadata intelligence are critical for multi-cloud DDI
Customer-driven development roadmaps deliver features based on operational needs rather than vendor assumptions
Flexible licensing models accommodate diverse procurement requirements
Learn More
Visit https://www.ipv4.global/provision/ for detailed information about IPv4.Global's ProVision DDI solutions and connect with Pete Sclafani on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/procopes for deeper discussions about multi-cloud DDI strategies.