Articles

Men&Mice Suite 9.1: cloud-ready network management for DNS, DHCP and IPAM

Transparency, responsiveness, and ease-of-use are all core principles of Men&Mice for keeping networks healthy and safe.

Jul 11th, 2018

Our commitment to efficient network management has a new number! The Men&Mice Suite 9.1 is a feature release with a host of cloud-ready enhancements plus the usual suspects (bug fixes and improvements).

Network Management just got easier

Transparency, responsiveness, and ease-of-use are all core principles of Men&Mice for keeping networks healthy and safe from DDoS attacks and other DNS network failures.

The 9.1 release continues our mission to simplify network management without sacrificing features. Included in Men&Mice Suite v9.1:

  • A new web-based Men&Mice Suite management application
  • Optimized and enhanced cloud support
  • Improved xDNS Redundancy read-only zones for hybrid and multi-cloud networks
  • DNS software on appliances upgraded to BIND 9.11 with DNSTAP support
  • NTP functionality for virtual appliances
  • Various improvements and bug fixes

5 Things You’ll Love About Men&Mice Suite v9.1

Men&Mice Suite v9.1 focuses on features and refinements gleaned from customer feedback and engagement as well as refinements of previously introduced functionality. Here's what you will find in the new release:

Web-based management application

The new web-based management application serves as an alternative to the Men&Mice Suite Windows-based management console. It’s designed to make performing day-to-day tasks, management functions and generating reports related to DNS and DHCP operations easier. The application features three sections: DNS, Networks and Reporting.

  • The DNS section makes all your DNS zones accessible from a single place.
  • The Networks section gives you instant access and overview of your networks.
  • Reporting lets you quickly find and run existing reports.

Its Quick Command functionality cuts down time on common tasks such as finding and working with DNS zones or records, IP address ranges, DHCP scopes and IP addresses.

Read-only zones in xDNS Redundancy groups

xDNS Redundancy, which can be used to synchronize DNS zones hosted with multiple cloud providers, now includes support for Active Directory-hosted zones. Zones in a redundancy group can be assigned to read-only mode, so that changes made to a DNS zone outside of the Men&Mice Suite will not be replicated to all other zone instances.

Optimized and enhanced Cloud support

Version 9.1 streamlines the migration and management of a large number of DNS zones with Azure DNS and Amazon Route 53 by utilizing cloud-native features to monitor changes to DNS made outside of the Men&Mice Suite, greatly improving synchronization of DNS data from the cloud providers.

Men&Mice virtual appliances upgraded to BIND 9.11 with

DNSTAP support

DNS software on Men&Mice virtual appliances has been upgraded to BIND 9.11, which supports various new features as well as DNSTAP. Details on DNS queries received and DNS replies sent by the Men&Mice virtual appliances can now be logged for further processing by enabling and utilizing the powerful DNSTAP feature with minimal performance impact on the appliances.

NTP functionality for virtual appliances

The virtual appliances can also now function as NTP (Network Time Protocol) servers and be served by the same network infrastructure as DNS and DHCP.  Currently this functionality is manual and can be implemented per request with our support team.

Nearly 30 years of DNS experience in one solution

“The Men&Mice Suite v9.1 represents our commitment to enabling customers to adapt their infrastructure to be more software-enabled, cloud-ready and redundant, with increased visibility, control, security and automation.” --Magnús Björnsson, CEO of Men&Mice.

Complex enterprise network infrastructure can — and should — have the same elegant simplicity and responsiveness as IT professionals expect from customer-grade solutions. In the new release, Men&Mice has combined its nearly 30 years of expertise in developing DNS, DHCP and IPAM solutions with modern UX best practices to deliver a compelling, enjoyable management interface on top of a best-in-class, robust software-based DDI product.

If you want to try Men&Mice Suite v9.1 for free just click the button below.

Not ready? Read more about the Men&Mice Suite, or get an online demo.