DNS issue with CentOS7?

I am working in a VMWare environment creating a network for a college class, and I keep running into what I can only assume is a DNS error with my two CENTOS7 systems. The system environment is as follows:

Firewall system: LAN at x.x.5.2
Hostname: fw01
pfsense

Management system: LAN at x.x.5.10
Hostname: mgmt01
Windows Server version 1809
Acting as management system  for network

Workstation System: LAN at x.x.5.100
Hostname: wks01
Windows 10 Enterprise
Acting as local workstation for testing

AD-System: LAN at x.x.5.5 
Hostname: ad01
Windows Server Core
Running Active Directory and DNS for the network
Domain Name is name.local

web: LAN at x.x.5.11
Hostname: web01
CentOS7
Running an Apache Web Server on the network. Does not need to expose publicly. 

network monitoring system: LAN at x.x.5.200
Hostname: nmon01
CentOS7
Monitoring system for snmp running on firewall

As of the beginning of this project, all boxes except the Cent systems were able to ping each other by hostname using AD01 as the primary DNS server. I am able to control everything properly though Windows Server Manager on mgmt01. All is hunky dory.

I have added both Cent boxes to the LAN, added their corresponding DNS records to AD01, and can ping both of them by hostname from the windows systems on the network. They are able to ping name.local, and google.com without issue.

Neither CentOS system is able to ping the systems on the domain by hostname, without having hostname.name.local completely typed out.

Occasionally, network connectivity drops altogether, and only comes back online upon restarting the NetworkManager service systemctl restart NetworkManager

I would like to figure out the following:

1. Why is the system losing connectivity. It is a virtual machine so it is not a cable issue or a hardware issue.
2. Why is my DNS unable to resolve by hostname FROM the box, but is able to resolve TO the box just fine.

UPDATE:

I installed a DHCP Service on the AD01 system, and configured it to take WKS as it's client. I mistakenly left open the automatic setting in both cent systems that allowed them to pick up DHCP addresses. This in and of itself is not weird, but the weird part occurs when I run ip addr, and out comes ONE network card with TWO ip addresses, one static and one dynamic. The best part? DNS is resolving now despite the primary IP on each network card being dynamic.

I've found that DNS does really odd things with a domain suffix of .local. That is a reserved suffix for multicast and quite often an address ending in .local simply does not resolve. I'd strongly suggest changing to name.lan as your domain.