Multicloud networking: Azure and the Men&Mice Suite

We’ve previously outlined the Men&Mice Suite’s deep integration with on-prem Windows and cloud-based Azure and Azure DNS, which helps extend the value of Microsoft services investments while gaining comprehensive visibility, management and scalability from the Men&Mice Suite. This is particularly helpful for network environments comprised of either several Microsoft services, including Azure, or hybrid environments where several otherwise non-compatible services need to be utilized.

If you’re already dependent on Windows servers on-prem and other Microsoft products to run your infrastructure, moving workloads to Azure makes a lot of sense. As is, many large-scale organizations, from Fortune 100-500-1000 companies, to education and research institutions or governmental municipalities, are already deeply reliant on Microsoft software, as are a good number of Men&Mice customers, many of whom have begun moving workloads into Azure over the last few years.

Why Men&Mice?

Men&Mice has a long history of technical compatibility with Microsoft products - including being the first vendor to offer Azure DNS third party support. This, combined with our presence in the Azure Marketplace, as well as our burgeoning business relationship through Microsoft’s Co-Sell program, means accessing the benefits of both Azure and Men&Mice has never been simpler.

Some of the main benefits of using the Men&Mice Suite with Azure include:

• Bulk migration and import to Azure DNS
• Sync between Azure DNS and other DNS platforms
• Workflow extensions to automatically tag zones during migration
• Unified audit trails and tracking changes
• Granular, role-based access and delegation, including Active Directory support
• AD Single-Sign-On with automation
• Visibility across all VNETs, address blocks, subnets and IP addresses
• Use of APIs to manage data.

Looking for the easiest way to evaluate Men&Mice Suite and Azure? Try the Men&Mice Suite directly from the Azure Marketplace. As a Co-Sell partner and a recent winner of the Microsoft Partner Award for Infrastructure Innovation, we’ve further expanded our reach with Microsoft beyond technical capabilities to create new simplified, ease-of-access processes for customers of Azure and Men&Mice Suite.

A few scenarios where the combination of the Men&Mice Suite and Azure really shines:

• Mergers and acquisitions are made easier by staying in the same ecosystem (Windows Servers + Azure). Likewise, unifying a multitude of on-prem and cloud network services and environments through Men&Mice Suite, eases network transitions and provides near-immediate visibility.
• Utilizing the Men&Mice Suite with Azure allows the dynamic scaling or migration from on-prem Microsoft DNS or BIND to Azure DNS.
• Physical expansions are also made easier through using the Men&Mice Suite to clone already working environments, while taking advantage of Azure’s global availability to reduce local latency and support turnaround.
• Project fragmentation causing network overlaps and conflicts can be quickly resolved through Men&Mice Suite on top of Azure, providing transparency for all IP addresses, VNETS, and subnets.
• Network diversification. Network supply chain diversity is critical to add redundancy and  prevent against DDoS and other malicious attacks. Using the Men&Mice Suite’s xDNS Redundancy™ feature makes this easier, while the infrastructure is backed by Microsoft’s robust SLAs.

Utilizing the Men&Mice Suite with Azure

The Men&Mice Suite’s superior Windows compatibility, Active Directory integration, as well as native support for IP Address Management in Azure and Azure DNS have both attracted Men&Mice customers to Azure as well as, increasingly, Azure customers to Men&Mice Suite.

With the Men&Mice Suite you can see VNETs, address blocks, subnets and IP addresses across all of your organization’s Azure infrastructure, and sync between Azure DNS and other DNS platforms using Men&Mice’s xDNS Redundancy™ feature. Or, migrate entire zones to Azure DNS from other services and fully manage them using granular access control tied into Active Directory.

The resilience, scaling, and security of Azure combined with the hybrid and multicloud management and visibility offered through Men&Mice Suite helps to resolve obstacles in the form of runaway migration costs, lack of compatibility between the multitude of on-prem and cloud services and loss of control in managing the DNS in conjunction with the IP data.