Well I think that setting up simple methods to grab the info from the pdc would be the best manner. As for doing the name lookups and pinging the host. Why not be simple and just

$ping = `ping $host`;
$nslookup = `nslookup $host`;
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Then you can printout the return, regex it, parse it, do whatever you want. No need to use Net::Ping or anything on a task as simple as this. Simple fill and array with all the hosts form the dumpfile, then

foreach my $host (@hosts) {
  $ping = `ping $host`;
  $nslookup = `nslookup $host';
  print "Ping result is $ping \n";
  print "Nslookup result is $nslookup for host $host \n";
}
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Hopefully I helped some.
P.S. Make sure you are using ` and not ' around those system commands, to pipe it to the system and not just assing a var.
Tradez
"Never underestimate the power of stupidity"
- Bullet Tooth Tony, Snatch (2001)