We sent everybody home because of the new variant. People were trying to be safe, so we decided if you want to connect to our network, use this solution.
The solution is deployed on a private cloud. The cloud provider is Microsoft Azure.
We sent everybody home because of the new variant. People were trying to be safe, so we decided if you want to connect to our network, use this solution.
The solution is deployed on a private cloud. The cloud provider is Microsoft Azure.
Instead of having to go the old-fashioned dinosaur way and look for the computers, you could just look in the cloud, find the computer, and change the IP address. That helped so much. I was like, "This is the Mac address. Find it up there, change the IP address from A to B," and then we could continue doing work from there.
You can monitor traffic so you can see if the network is having issues or laggy or what people are doing. You can point them out and say, "Stop doing that." If you're trying to identify one of the switches or pinpoint a computer or pinpoint something, you could find it just like that and change the IP address. It's easiest to do it that way.
Documentation could be improved, but everything else has been spot-on.
I have been using this solution for a couple of years.
There have been no issues with stability. The solution is being used every day in my organization.
The solution doesn't require a lot of maintenance. It's easy to do. If you go on the cloud, you can just push the updates from there.
The solution is scalable. There are 200-300 users in our organization. There are plans to increase usage in the future.
Implementation was straightforward. It took a couple of months to set up, implement, and start using.
For initial setup, you have to do the access once and then you have to go to the cloud to make sure they connect.
We used a consultant from Cisco.
I would rate this solution 10 out of 10.
It makes life easier. You don't have to go cabling. It saves time. It saves man hours. It's just better. My advice is to use this solution instead of using the old-fashioned one. It will save you headaches.
My primary use of this solution is to provide WiFi to users and guests.
The most valuable feature is that the solution is friendly to manage.
An area for improvement would be that Meraki doesn't work well in a warehouse environment. The device is too sensitive to other wireless devices, which provokes noise and can require a reboot to erase this. In addition, the cost of the product could be better.
I've been using this solution for three years.
The stability of this product is good.
This solution has good scalability.
Cisco's technical support is good.
Previously, I used TP-Link, but it's designed for use in the home, so I switched to Cisco, which is a better product for the office.
The initial setup is easy.
I used a partner team to implement, which took around thirty minutes.
My yearly license costs $200.
This is a good solution for the office but not for warehouses. I would give this solution a rating of eight out of ten.
I do not know which version we are using.
I find Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN to be more secure and easy to use. It is easy to control.
With the solution, we have a little mesh and wire LAN, and the performance is awesome.
The price can always be better.
There should be better Spanish-language technical support.
I am wholly in agreement that the solution is stable.
I agree wholeheartedly that the solution is scalable.
For the moment, we do not have plans to increase the usage.
There should be better Spanish-language support.
The solution's setup was easy.
The previous deployment took, perhaps, two weeks.
We were assisted by the main controller and several partners.
Our experience with them was positive. We found them to be helpful.
There was an engineer who was responsible for configuring the solution and a technician for connecting the cables in the wall.
I have not seen a return on our investment.
As is always the case, the price could be better, although I do not recall exactly how much this comes out to. I do know that I make tri-annual purchases of the solution. The fee is once every three years.
We did not use another solution prior to Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN. We considered Fortinet as an alternative, but felt Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN offered better wifi and was a superior routing solution.
I am a customer.
There are, perhaps, 25 or 30 people making use of the solution in our organization.
The solution is trustworthy. I find it easy and secure.
I rate Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN as an eight out of ten.
I think the IoT integration is the most valuable. I started applying IoT solutions 12 years ago on location-based services. Aruba had implemented this at the time. So I think the integration, particularly into the applications and stuff, is pretty interesting in Meraki. It's a substantial network from my point of view. It's good.
You're starting to see CO2-type sensors come into the classrooms and stuff like that. So it would be nice to build some "if-then" functions into IoT-type sensors. For instance, if a classroom has high CO2 levels, you could automatically open the Windows and use heat exchange to bring in fresh air into the room. At the same time, you could have the temperature control adjust automatically so it doesn't get too hot or too. So you would need to plug in some configurable where you collect the output from the sensors and have it carry out some small actions based on that. I think it's well within Meraki's capabilities.
I've been working in IT for 40 years. I was working on Nortel products even before Cisco, so I have more than 20 years of experience in WiFi alone.
Everything works. I can't knock the product. I know a lot of the senior management within Meraki and used to work with them at Nortel. I know many people who work on the product side, and I've never had a problem. I've deployed Meraki for one customer with 2,500 sites in the UK, and I don't think I've ever had a wireless AP go faulty on me. We've just never had a failure, to be quite honest. That's unusual.
The only thing that always causes problems with Meraki is the license. It's a bit of a bugbear with Meraki, and it remains today. So it's an unusual concept compared to the other products in the marketplace, but then it does cause a bit of a nuisance from time to time. The license they sell is difficult.
I've worked on Meraki and other Cisco products as well as Hewlett Packard, Aruba, Siemens, and Aerohive. Aruba's first-class product is easy to work with, and I've done a lot of the complicated location with services on the Aruba kit. Most of the WiFi solutions are pretty good. The main difference between products is the application integration for location-based or IoT services, and Meraki has a good lead. You can buy IoT centers that work. So I know they're pretty basic sensors, and they are a bit expensive. However, I don't think you can beat Meraki when you're talking about multiple deployments, particularly in retail and stuff like that. It's very good for that. With loads of different sites and small amounts of kit, it works perfectly. I haven't had many problems, and in the many times I've worked with the kit, it's never failed me. That's unusual.
I rate Cisco Meraki WLAN mine of 10. However, it would be a 10 out of 10 if it could apply some conditional logic where the result from a sensor triggers an action on another IoT device, such as a motorized heat exchanger, to bring fresh air into the building. If you were able to do something like that, it would improve things even more. It's a good LAN, but there's always room for improvement. There are some things that I'd like to see, such as more applications, integrations, and stuff like that, but apart from that, it's pretty good.
When you look at the benefits, some wireless solutions are more flexible than others. Meraki is easy to configure and monitor. The best thing Meraki can do is give them a test AP on their network because there is some problem with APN allowing other kits on the network and letting people test, but handover between the APs is satisfactory. I've got four APs in my home that go between the office, workshop, and high space, and the handover is still seamless. The coverage is brilliant from my point of view. I deployed it in a large warehouse, and handover was seamless. It was covered. To me, the easiest way is to get a customer to test their network with two, so they can do a handover and allow them to test and configure. That's plug-and-play.
We are resellers and our customers are generally medium to enterprise size organizations. I'm the senior manager and we are partners with Cisco.
The dashboard is a great feature that is architecturally based and I like the fact that the solution is accessible from anywhere. As an administrator, it is very useful to have access to the dashboard from anywhere through my mobile Meraki app. I can see if there are any issues and can get alerts over my emails. The basic value of the product is the ease of use and ease of access from anywhere. The product is very easy to manage, easy to configure, and easy for our customers to understand. It's the ease of use that sells Meraki. When it's used as a whole stack, Meraki is one of the very good and easy to manage products.
There are a lot of improvements that could be made, especially from the feature point of view. If you compare the Meraki firewall to UTM, Meraki has close to 90% of all the features that UTM offers but there are some that are lacking and that need to be rectified. For example, UTM has a feature that enables you to block videos inside Facebook or block particular applications inside another application. In Meraki, you can only block the entire app or the entire URL. For example, you can block the category video, but not any applications that are inside apps. When it comes to switching, Meraki lacks categories of features, like the traditional Cisco, Aruba, or Ruckus app, and I think they need to increase the number of modules and categories of switches.
I've been using this solution for almost six years.
The product is stable and I have not seen any issues over the past couple of years.
The solution is scalable, the only problem we had earlier was the Meraki firewall did not support more than two ISC links, but I think the hardware has matured and can now support more than two ISC links. Some years ago now, Meraki used to lose many customers because it didn't support more than two ISC links.
It's very easy to get support from Meraki, because everything is there in the dashboard. You just need to open a case through the dashboard and you get good support.
The pricing is a little higher than other similar architecture products such as Ruckus or Aruba. Meraki has a premium pack added to it so it's costly.
If you're a medium enterprise type of organization, I'd recommend something like Meraki, at least from the wireless point of view, because I think it has a very, very simple and easy-to-use dashboard. As mentioned, it's easy to configure and very easy to manage. Wherever there are very low resources to manage a network, Meraki is the one. If a company isn't managing many people and there aren't too many network administrators, it's a very good solution.
I rate the solution seven out of 10.
We use it for wireless and our network. All our switches and our APs are Meraki.
We are using its latest version. The device is on-prem, but everything is on the cloud. Meraki has its own cloud.
It is easy to set up. You can do everything on the GUI. You don't need to trace cables. You don't need to connect to the switch. Everything is there, right in front of you.
They're great. If there's anything that they need to change, it is just simplifying the site to which you go to make changes on the admin side.
I have been using this solution for five years.
It is very stable.
I can add or remove without any issues. So, scalability is no issue. It is being extensively used in the organization at the moment.
I have never contacted their support. It has always been great.
We used to have just the plain Cisco, and we just switched to Meraki. We switched because in the past, for you to trace or change VLANs and all that, you actually needed to log into the actual switch and make the changes there. You had to run a lot of commands and all that, but with Meraki, you could just go to their portal and make the changes there. Everything is kind of right in front of you. So, it makes things so much easier.
It is easy to set up. It took weeks because we had to install it, but the setup itself only took an hour or two.
It was done in-house. In terms of maintenance, it is very lightweight. I'm the admin for it. We do have other IT staff, but they don't really have to do much.
I would advise others to go and get it now. If you don't have it, get it.
I would rate it a nine out of 10 for the ease of use.
With Cisco Meraki, I've tried motherboard, switches, and wireless, and everything is good. If you want to complete visibility, then you are required just a firewall and switches, and wireless.
The solution offers good features and good performance. It's quite stable. We have never faced challenges just from our ID access point.
You can scale the solution easily.
The problem with the solution is that if you go for firewall, then there is no SSL encryption available. If you are talking about deep packet inspection, that is not available. If you want SSL encryption, then you have to integrate with Cisco Umbrella.
If they could work on the Meraki firewall hardware, and add SSL decryption as well as more application control and deep packet inspection, that would be ideal.
Also in Cisco Meraki access points, MAC filtering is not available. If they could add that feature, that would be great.
I've been using the solution for two or three years at this point. It's been a while.
The stability is very good. There are no bugs. There are no glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's reliable.
This is a cloud-based product and the best thing about a cloud-based product is if you have a cloud controller and access point, then you don't have to worry about that key for licenses. If you've got 70 access points, you can register there. If you have 1,000 and 2,0000, you can also register there. There is no need to change any controller hardware as that is a cloud-based product, which makes it fully scalable. You can add to it and still maintain a single point of management.
This is a pure cloud-based solution and everything is managed by the cloud.
I'd rate the solution at a nine out of ten.
I haven't deployed it for myself. I have deployed it for customers. I work for a systems integrator.
We use it for Branch-type of installations where you have a small branch. You just need to manage it via the internet. You don't need a controller-type of environment there, for a small office-type of deployment.
It's a cheaper resource that helps manage a company's WiFi network.
The solution's ease of use is great.
The ease of management has been great.
The initial setup is easy.
The product has been very stable over the years.
Technical support is okay.
The pricing is reasonable.
Meraki is still very much a small office type of solution. It is not a fit for large enterprise networks, as it doesn't have tunneling functionalities.
If you are configuring Meraki as a RADIUS client, you have to add individual 100 or whatever devices on the site as a RADIUS client. There is no RADIUS proxy option. Therefore, it is pretty much still a good use case for small networks, however, it's not a great use case for larger networks.
The product needs to offer role-based access.
I've been using the solution for more than ten years now. It's been a decade or so. I have quite a bit of experience with it.
The solution is very stable. As long as your internet links are stable, Meraki works perfectly fine. There are no bugs or glitches. it doesn't crash or freeze. It's reliable.
Meraki is not a very scalable solution. It has its own limitations on the number of devices you can deploy. I would say it's not a very scalable solution.
I've contacted technical support a couple of times. They were okay. I didn't have any issues with them; they are fine.
I've used Cisco EROs, Cisco Meraki, Catalyst 9800, Aruba, and Instant Aruba, controller-based.
The initial setup is not complex or difficult. It's very straightforward.
The pricing is okay. However, they don't have a perpetual license option. Regardless of what type of functionality a customer is looking for, they have to go for subscription-based licensing.
I'm a Cisco partner.
Meraki is a public cloud. With Meraki, you don't have a private cloud solution.
I'd rate the solution at a seven out of ten.
