Banking on automation.

At a glance.

As an integral part of the European System of Central Banks, OeNB (central bank of Austria) sets monetary policy, maintains financial stability, provides banknotes and coins, compiles comprehensive statistics and facilitates cashless payments in Austria.

Situation.

In anticipation of IPv6, OeNB needed an IP Address Management solution that could ease the transition, as well as consolidate the variety of methods used by the different networking teams to record, track and manage their IP subnet data. With strong in-house knowledge, advanced business logic built into their system configurations and an effective mix of BIND, ISC DHCP and Windows, it was critical that the commercial IPAM solution integrated with, rather than replaced, OeNB IP network infrastructure.

Solution.

After scanning the market for a scalable IPAM solution to complement the solid strengths of their existing IP infrastructure, OeNB chose to invest in the sophisticated architectural flexibility of the DNS, DHCP and IP Address Management (DDI) software of Micetro by Men&Mice.

Finding reliable IP checks and balances.

New technology offers new solutions, but also poses fresh challenges. At Oesterreichische Nationalbank (OeNB), the Austrian central bank, systems engineers identified the advent of IPv6 as a new challenge best met by re-evaluating their system of IP network management as a whole.

As a well-established organization, OeNB’s IP network management had evolved to include a number of independent teams managing individual subnets, each with their own techniques – text files, Excel or other combinations.

During the process of building an IP database for more effective documentation of IP addresses, it became clear to network systems engineer Thomas Zenz and his colleagues that a commercial IPAM solution would help to improve their system’s scalability, adding much-needed search functions and automatic error checking. With a network consisting of BIND, ISC DHCP, and Windows, and having built considerable business logic into their network configurations, it was critical to OeNB networking teams that a commercial IPAM solution integrate with their server environment, as well as their system of IP management. The expense and disruption of a large-scale replacement of OeNB’s server infrastructure was not an option.

Banking on customizable change.

While on the lookout for a suitable commercial solution, Thomas and members of the OeNB team made first contact with the highly flexible Micetro at a Cisco Live trade show. The team was particularly taken by Micetro's unique ability to integrate with existing network infrastructure, including BIND and ISC DHCP. This would enable OeNB to continue to build on the strengths of their customized infrastructure, yet gain the benefits of a wide range of DDI automation, tracking and management functionality, plus fine-grained, role-based access control - a must-have for a network managed by multiple teams.

Following their decision to invest in Micetro by Men&Mice, OeNB network systems engineers embarked on the virtually painless process of deploying and integrating Micetro with their existing infrastructure. The transition quickly delivered the desired results: automation and consolidation of teams’ IP documentation, tracking and managing techniques, while preserving the network environment and the OeNB system of management.

To Thomas, Micetro's sensible access management permissions were exactly what their multiple teams needed. Instead of centralized delegation reducing team autonomy, Micetro increased it.

Building network resilience for the future.

Investing in Micetro by Men&Mice has not only helped OeNB set the course towards adopting IPv6, but also helped to complement their existing system with the right checks and balances for an increasingly virtualized future.

In the ever-changing technological hothouse of networking, diversified network security threats will demand diversified safeguards. While Micetro effortlessly scales as a company’s IP infrastructure grows, to OeNB its small footprint and ease of use also make it the ideal tool for splitting parts of their network and building smaller subnets for security purposes.