Enterprise networks: What’s at the forefront of every admin’s mind?

Disruption happens. Even to the best teams. It’s what you do with it that matters. As if relying on multiple cloud platforms, complicated connectivity, and change management weren’t challenging enough for businesses to begin with, supporting remote workers in their day-to-day activities during the COVID-19 epidemic was another layer of complexity to add into the mix.

An international company operating across several countries and at least two continents, Men&Mice was familiar with remote working and ready to tackle the new COVID-related business practices head-on. But as we begin to emerge from our home office caves, what exactly has the pandemic changed and where should businesses invest their efforts? I think the answer lies in increased business agility, automation, and (cloud) APIs.

Cloud usage will continue to grow.

Today, in a world shaped by uncontrollable external influences both positive and negative, like the pandemic or new technologies, networks have been forced to adapt with speed that seemed improbable a year ago, with many transitioning into the cloud quicker than anticipated. The cloud environment is now being used not just as an application destination but also as an emerging enterprise management model. Not only does it provide network insights and analytics, but also fast access to new features – a significant development during the pandemic.

According to a recent Gartner report, roughly 40% of all enterprise workloads will be deployed in cloud infrastructure and platform services (CIPS) by 2023, up from 20% in 2020.  This means that the rapid pace of innovation in CIPS has made cloud the de facto platform for new digital services and existing traditional workloads alike.

Business agility takes center stage with the help of APIs.

In the networking arena, companies that are routinely relying on legacy systems could be left behind. The challenges of rapid advancement call on companies to be agile to make sure that their networks are ready for whatever the future throws at them. This is where APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) come in especially useful.

More specifically, an API is a library of commands that developers and software users can access to write customized code for different types of software to interface with one another. Though the channels of communication created by APIs are used by machines, the power of an API’s capabilities depends entirely on the strength of the library of commands created by the people who built it. When well-designed, they can be conduits for fast change: you no longer need to spend months doing something when it now can be done error-free in a day.

Automation, through APIs, helps eliminate human error. What’s more, the proof of a good API is in the product: does the API help a user to create something extremely useful within their applications that would’ve been virtually impossible to do otherwise?

Going API with Men&Mice.

Consider the API in Micetro by Men&Mice. Miscommunication between applications in a networking environment can lead to misconfiguration, debilitating outages and downtime. The Men&Mice API eliminates the miscommunication risk by sticking to a solid, consistent naming base. While the core command names remain the same, you can choose your preferred method of communication: JSON RPC, SOAP or REST – whichever suits you best.

Simple, consistent naming makes the Men&Mice API unusually intuitive, granting you the freedom and ease-of-use to create the scripts you need. Clear documentation and 24/7 technical support give the edge when you need a little bit more help to get where you’re going.

All languages capable of supporting SOAP calls, like Python, Perl, PowerShell, C# or Java, can be used to call the SOAP methods of Men&Mice Central. For REST, the options are even greater. Simply use your browser or wget (on Linux) to reach data with the API, eliminating the need to learn a variety of programming languages before being able to utilize the API.

Smart and logical, the Men&Mice API solutions offer you the freedom to customize your network your way through, for instance, the automation of processes, export of subnet or device data, or the integration of Micetro by Men&Mice in your existing environment.

Thanks to this unified approach, onboarding new devices and maintaining the network administration toolset is easier and faster, no matter how the network infrastructure scales or changes. A nice to have in ‘normal’ times and a must-have in times of disruption.