Fortune 500 multinational tech company: Upgrading the management of a critical network environment
Micetro by Men&Mice offers automated approval workflow to enable employees to request DNS changes and administrators to approve or deny them, reducing the number of change tickets to 0.
Key takeawaysThis key takeaway was generated through LLMs crawling the page and coming up with an overview of the content.The article describes a Men&Mice deployment where Micetro and process automation were used to modernize a large organization's DDI environment that had been managed on inefficient Unix DNS and DHCP servers. The real-world problem was high administrative overhead, slow centralized change management, and an inability for business units to quickly access DNS, DHCP and IPAM data in a fast-changing R&D and global operations environment. After migrating DNS/DHCP to Windows Server 2008 R2, importing IPAM from a homegrown tool into Micetro, and implementing an automated approval workflow and Micetro API access, the company cut service-desk change tickets from ~500/month to zero, redeployed 80% of DDI staff, increased uptime and security, and realized substantial cost and efficiency gains.
What specific operational problems did the company face before implementing Micetro and automation?
Before the implementation the company ran many inefficient Unix-based DNS and DHCP servers that demanded heavy administration for OS and software patching and daily entry management. All DDI changes were performed centrally by a large team operating under complex SLAs, creating an expensive, slow process with poor visibility. Business units lacked efficient, real-time access to DNS, DHCP and IP address information, making retrieval time-consuming and hindering departmental applications in a fast-changing R&D and global operations environment.
What technical changes were made during the solution implementation and how did they reduce workload?
The project migrated all DNS and DHCP infrastructure to Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 and moved IPAM data from a homegrown system into Micetro. Micetro’s flexible structure enabled automation of business processes, and the Micetro API provided real-time data access for departmental applications. An automated approval workflow allowed employees to request DNS changes while central administrators could approve or deny them, eliminating about 500 monthly service-desk change tickets and enabling the redeployment of roughly 80% of staff previously dedicated to DDI management.
What measurable benefits did the customer achieve after adopting Micetro and automation?
The customer reported several measurable outcomes: a reduction in service-desk change tickets from about 500 per month to zero due to the automated approval workflow; redeployment of approximately 80% of personnel formerly assigned to DDI management; improved service levels and overall uptime of critical network resources; enhanced security; and significant cost savings. Additionally, Micetro API access provided business units with real-time DNS, DHCP and IP address information for their applications, improving operational efficiency across departments.
The automated approval process workflow enabled all appropriate employees within the company to request DNS changes, and central administrators to approve or deny the update, reducing the number of change tickets to 0.
The challenge
The customer was managing a large number of inefficient Unix DNS and DHCP servers that required considerable and expensive administration overhead, both with regard to OS and software patching and also in the day-to-day management of entries.
The customer has an extremely dynamic environment as it invests heavily in R&D, resulting in fast-changing production sites. With distributed global operations and a growing product portfolio, the DDI environment is constantly changing. All changes to the DDI environment were performed centrally by a large team that worked according to complex and detailed SLAs they had with various departments within the company. This created an expensive and inefficient system that suffered from a lack of overview, and significantly slowed service within the company.
“Various business units need DNS, DHCP and IP address information for their internal operations. To retrieve those data was very inefficient and time-consuming. Now with the Micetro API, the users can automatically access information in real-time, providing the data needed for their departmental applications.”
Our solution
The customer selected Men&Mice to assist with upgrading the management of their critical network environment. This was achieved both by implementing Micetro and by automating certain business processes to obtain the greatest efficiencies.
A key part of the upgrade was to migrate all DNS and DHCP infrastructure to Microsoft Windows 2008R2. IPAM information was migrated from a homegrown solution into Micetro. With this first phase, the company was able to achieve great savings and efficiencies by redeploying 80% of the staff previously dedicated to managing the DDI infrastructure.
An automated approval process workflow was implemented enabling all appropriate employees within the company to request DNS changes, and central administrators to approve or deny the update. This reduced the number of change tickets through the service desk from about 500 per month to 0.
Benefits
The unique and flexible structure of Micetro lends itself well to the automation of individual business processes within enterprises. This, along with specialized industry knowledge and solid customer relationships, helped this strategically critical project succeed. Our customer has increased their service levels, improved the security and overall uptime of their critical network resources, and achieved significant cost savings.
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