Phasing Out On-Prem DHCP/DNS Servers - What's Your Strategy?

[talksr]

Hi everyone,

I'm keen to get some insights on how others in the school sector are handling the gradual move away from on-prem infrastructure, particularly for core services like DHCP and DNS. With budget cuts and the shift to cloud services, maintaining aging local servers is becoming a real challenge.

I have a perfect example of this at one of my sites: an HP ProLiant DL320e Gen8 V2 server. It's well past its warranty coverage period, hasn't been rebooted since 2023, and the last time it was, we had a RAID array failure. It's now in a state where I'm genuinely afraid to power it down😭

 

This server is currently handling DHCP and DNS for the administrative network (for office staff, medical, SLT, etc.). While it's still running on Windows Server 2016, which gives us some breathing room, the hardware itself is a ticking time bomb.

 

I'm finding that our reliance on Active Directory is decreasing as we move more services to the cloud. This got me thinking about the future of these core network services.

 

• Are you still running dedicated on-prem servers for DHCP and DNS?
• What are your strategies for replacing or migrating these services?
• Are you looking at more modern on-prem solutions (e.g., virtualised servers, micro-appliances) or are you moving these functions to the cloud?

 

Any advice or shared experiences on this would be hugely appreciated!

[Frodo_Baggins]

DHCP\DNS on the ISP provided router, filtering upstream by ISP but debating this, cashless catering (Vericool) and printing (UniFlow) are hosted and any other apps sit on an Azure VM.

 

Only server in the traditional sense is our VOIP system which as at the central MAT office but hopefully we can switch that to hosted in the near future (along with our Paxton10 server)

 

Intune\Entra for management and all files are in OneDrive\SharePoint

[Frodo_Baggins]

Does come with a shift to "Cloud First" though which your SLT needs to be on board with when purchasing software packages. etc (any older software that requires a server to license e.g. DT just sits on the teachers computer\ laptop and acts as the server)

Edited August 12, 2025 by Frodo_Baggins

[ThatBoringBloke]

DCHP on the core switches.

DNS is still AD based for on domain devices.

Our Chrome devices point to Google DNS.

[6Foot3]

On 12/08/2025 at 13:43, Frodo_Baggins said:

DHCP\DNS on the ISP provided router, filtering upstream by ISP but debating this, cashless catering (Vericool) and printing (UniFlow) are hosted and any other apps sit on an Azure VM.

 

Only server in the traditional sense is our VOIP system which as at the central MAT office but hopefully we can switch that to hosted in the near future (along with our Paxton10 server)

 

Intune\Entra for management and all files are in OneDrive\SharePoint

With DHCP on ISP router. Do you have access to make reservations, or do you not use reservations?

 

Is it a flat network or do you have VLANs

[Frodo_Baggins]

47 minutes ago, alordcharlie said:

With DHCP on ISP router. Do you have access to make reservations, or do you not use reservations?

 

Is it a flat network or do you have VLANs

We request reservations from the ISP, bit of a strong change but they do it from a phone call and it's not been an issue to be honest.

Flat network from my predecessor but plan to add a few in for proper segmentation (Vlan off voip, estates, etc)

[Davit2005]

You can always build a DHCP on Linux, sort of defeats the purpose of serverless but with DHCP there is little option unless the DHCP is on the same broadcast network or DHCP helpers/relays in place. A core switch is an option but depending on the implementation it can be pretty crude. Routers are the next option but again mixed implementation used by manufacturers.

 

Not sure I can ever go back to waiting on a 3rd party to make that or firewall/filtering changes like I have been able to do myself for last 15 years now.

Edited February 10 by Davit2005

[FN-GM]

21 hours ago, Davit2005 said:

You can always build a DHCP on Linux, sort of defeats the purpose of serverless

 

You could argue you're never serverless whilst you have DHCP running. Even if it is on a router, switch or firewall. It's still a server 😇

[ShellfishClive]

We run both DHCP and DNS from the SmoothWalls we have installed for most sites, if not we just run a small box with Windows Server on it purely for DHCP.

[6Foot3]

We run DHCP on a Synology box for ease of access and DNS on the ISP FortiGate.