In today’s enterprise IT environments, DNS isn’t just centralized—it’s sprawling across cloud providers, SaaS platforms, and DNS vendors. That complexity has created serious visibility gaps. According to Patrick Sullivan, CTO of Security Strategy at Akamai, managing DNS risk now demands a new approach: one that’s both multi-cloud and agentless.

“DNS has become highly distributed,” Sullivan explains. “You may have a preferred DNS provider, but perhaps a marketing team, or there’s M&A activity, or you’re using cloud-native DNS services. That sprawl and complexity can lead to misconfiguration, stale configurations, and risk.”

The traditional model of deploying agents to monitor infrastructure doesn’t scale well in these environments. Akamai’s DNS Posture Management solution addresses this with an agentless architecture that integrates directly into existing systems. “It’s helpful for anybody who finds themselves with agent fatigue,” says Sullivan. “Typically, we’re able to do this with API-level access to the DNS provider, or by joining an identity group.”

This soft integration enables read-only access to DNS configuration data across platforms—whether you’re using AWS Route 53, Google Cloud DNS, Azure DNS, or a third-party registrar. The goal is centralized governance over distributed DNS infrastructure, without introducing additional operational overhead or security risk.

The result is continuous visibility into DNS hygiene and misconfiguration, regardless of where your DNS records reside. “We’re reviewing those configurations from a risk perspective, no matter where they live,” Sullivan emphasizes.

Agentless, multi-cloud DNS Posture Management isn’t just about convenience—it’s about aligning with how infrastructure actually works today. As enterprises operate in increasingly hybrid and federated environments, DNS Posture Management must evolve in kind.