Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN Reviews

Our basic feature here is that we're in the education field.

I used to be a Cisco controller-based program, and 

This product has absolutely improved the way our organization functions.

It's much faster and it's more balanced. It gives me the ability to balance the network a little bit better from a 2.4 interface, as far as channelization is concerned. Then, with AC coming out with the five gigahertz, getting much more stable, it's allowed a lot of us to switch over to that. However, it is important that you still have the support for 2.4 because it's out there.

What I like best about Meraki is that I can change it from anywhere. I'm really the only person here that understands the concepts, which means that if I'm not on campus, resolving the problem is something that I can do online.

We also have a resident program here as well. So, if something's not right with the resident or they have an issue with their internet over there, I can flip to make it go over to a different internet circuit pretty quickly without ever coming onto campus.

Initially, I liked some of the filtering features, but that's one of the components that we ran into problems with. We don't use it as much anymore. This is one of the things that I'm trying to find out if Aruba does better.

For example, I like all of my iOS devices to go on one network so that if they try to do iOS updates, we have an Apple server online so that they can just pull the iOS updates from it instead of having them on other parts of the network. Also, we're a one-to-one school where we give laptops out, and I'd like to be able to block the old laptops from being able to access the network. That means that the students are forced to use their new laptop, as opposed to an older one.

It would be really helpful if there were a way that the access point could determine whether the client has an AC radio and if so, force it to try and connect to there first. As it is now, it lets the client determine how it wants to connect. This is the case with wireless in general, but it would be nice to have this option.

We have been using Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN for approximately six years.

The only time we've had any issue at all is when the firmware upgrades don't automatically apply. You can set them to automatically apply, but you have to be really careful in a school setting, because you can't just say, "Oh yeah, I want to reboot this building." It would mean that the entire building will go down. This means that you have to schedule those a little bit differently. I always do it manually instead of automatically.

I wish it would let us do one access point at a time because then I could literally do a building. It doesn't let you do one at a time. It does let you schedule them as a network but doesn't let you pick a specific access point for a specific time.

This is a product that scales pretty easily. We have about 1,200 people using it.

We have students and teachers and parents, and then, of course, we have staff members in general, and lots of different devices. One of the big things that I will challenge people at, and I don't think a lot of people realize this, but the challenge of some school networks is, especially for us, I'll use a final time, for example, is all of a sudden you have to have 850 to 900 people on the network at one time.

The exam starts now and all 850 students have to get on the network now. You don't see that any other school at that point in time. Kids come on, they join whenever, they've already got it on. You don't see that, but in those classes when they have to start exams, everybody has to hit that network and load a page now. Your network has to be able to be designed to handle that.

This is one of the reasons we've had to balance the wireless to make sure that we've been able to get good successful connections throughout the entire campus inside of every classroom. That way, no access points overloaded or the bandwidth is not overloaded. If you lose one in the middle, it's enough that it can withstand the fail over of another classroom in the middle of that type of exam.

It is this concept and design that has allowed us to sustain this system for more than five years without a problem.

The technical support is pretty good the team is very knowledgeable. Normally it takes once or twice to get through to them or get to the right level, but other than that, it's really good. I would rate them an eight out of ten.

We originally had Cisco and it was really costly. They eventually grew out of our price range in terms of the price of their equipment.

The initial setup is pretty straightforward.

We evaluated Aruba but at the time, I didn't feel that they were quite there. They had just introduced some of the web-related products, and Meraki was already seasoned.

We are currently looking at other products, including those from Aruba and Cisco. This is because our licensing is about to expire and it's time to upgrade the access points in some of our buildings. 

My advice for anybody who is considering this product is that you have to evaluate what your overall goal is. If you have a team that's going to monitor your network, that's not going to be there, especially if they're offsite, then you're going to have to do a web-based solution because that's the easiest way that they can help maintain it, versus an on-premise solution.

That narrows you down to a couple of different entities. Then, you just have to look at your features and what you like, from security measures to applications to structure. You have to find what fits the best.

I would definitely do an evaluation with any of them to make sure that they all fit within your confines.

In summary, this is a good product but there is always room for improvement.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

We use it for our IoT devices in the office. It is currently our wireless solution for all devices that require wireless connectivity, for example, our IoT devices and our user's laptops and phones.

Within our organization, there are roughly 400 to 500 users, using this solution. Mostly
developers, editors, finance — everybody uses it.

Soon, we're making the switch to Aruba wireless.

Because it's so easy for the common person to use, It has become less desirable for people who know the technology. The funny thing is that Meraki does have the ability to allow you to do that because you're talking about stuff that is controller-based. 

That is very good for small to medium-sized businesses with somebody who doesn't have that kind of skill-set to troubleshoot their environment; however, it's frustrating for somebody that wants to actually configure certain things. You can't do it because there's no way that you can get into that without asking them for permission.

The fact that it's cloud-based is valuable because you don't have to have an actual physical controller in your location. That cuts down on space that you need, the redundancy, the power that you consume, how much it takes to cool down your server room, etc.

Because it's user-friendly, you can hand off some of the easier troubleshooting tasks to people that are not necessarily wireless engineers. You can hand it off to a desktop team, so that's helpful.

With other solutions, you have to configure the right guardrails to keep people from messing things up, but Meraki already has those guardrails in place. This is very frustrating for a competent engineer because then he doesn't have the ability to customize it the way he wants — it's a double-edged sword.

The advanced configuration makes it so that any user can enable some of these features without having to ask them for help. It's designed like this because their business model targets people with mid-range expertise.

I think Meraki's doing fine, but I had to leave them because I came from using Cisco before they bought Meraki — which gives you so many options that you can expand upon that it's absolutely mind-numbing. 

As you learn, you miss some of those features when you switch to something else. I did enjoy using Meraki and I would use it again, but I wouldn't be using it for a large office because they don't have the kind of manpower to properly administrate it.

If there are advanced features that you can have enabled, they should allow users access to that in an easier manner. 

I have been using this solution for roughly four years.

I don't remember any outages that were caused by a loss of connection to the Meraki cloud controller. They can operate independently, which is good — they were stable. It has not been a chore or a very hard thing to work through. I really don't have any problems with the stability of the product. It's a good product, it's just not great for everybody.

Because it is cloud-based, you don't have to worry about it. Once you deploy it, it's very easy. You could actually ship one to a remote office, have them plug it in and once it phones home, you register it, and then you can configure it. So in that regard, it's very easy to set up a remote office. It's very good that way.

Their technical support is pretty good. Overall, I would give their support a rating of 8 out of ten.

They should expand their knowledge base online. I think a lot of problems could easily be solved if they had a better knowledge base.

We were using a WLC wireless LAN controller. We stopped using that solution because we had just been purchased by another company that was using Meraki, so we just sort of moved it over against my wishes. 

The initial setup was very straightforward. Our network engineer had it deployed in roughly one week.

We deployed it ourselves. We read about it and then we implemented it. As I said, it's not very hard.

Utilize the packet capture — I found that very helpful. Troubleshooting is one of the features that I found really helpful — day by day, trying to figure out what's going on. I think that people that are going to purchase it are looking for something really simple and something that works.

If I had to summarize Meraki, the biggest lesson that I learned while using it would be: simplicity has its costs.

Overall, on a scale from one to ten, I would give this solution a rating of eight.

It's a very good solution for small to medium-sized businesses that don't have the technical know-how to look for an enterprise-wide wireless solution. It's a great product for sub- enterprise solutions. It's also really good for hospitals and schools because of the easy deployment.

I use the product and I think that for what they're trying to achieve, there's nothing better.

Even though I'm moving to Aruba, I've seen and felt their wireless cloud-based controller system. I think that might be a little complicated for the average person. 

To take it to a rating of ten, there should be some more advanced features. I know that they have more stuff. You buy into the Meraki way, so to speak. You buy their switches, you buy their access points, everything starts to work a little bit better together; I never did that. I think that some of the stuff that I've even thought was making them better, they probably have already done. It's just that it wasn't for me. They should allow for some more granular configuration features that give people more control over their environment.

We use this product for the branch network connecting with the core application in the data centers of our main customers. 

We provide a Wi-Fi, secured internet connection for the customer branch.

This is an entry point to excel in other value-added services. 

Connectivity is the base of our internet provider service.

The most valuable feature is the technology of the security that is offered.

The connection to the internet via Wi-Fi, for external people who frequent the customer branch, needs improvement.

In the next release, I would like to see the central control plane have the flexibility to control and distribute policies to all LAN networks, balance the traffic, and the performance based on application monitoring.

I have been using this solution for approximately three or four months.

It's a stable solution.

This is not an area that I have explored as I am not a project specialist, but we would like to increase our usage.

We have approximately 300 users.

Technical support is good, but not easy to access and the technology is not open. It is very proprietary.

We have to have a variety of solution vendors in our portfolio. Currently, we have Aruba, Huawei, and Fortinet.

We will be increasing our vendors to include others to enlarge our portfolio.

Aruba is better for radio performance coverage, and it's easier. Meraki is more secure.

The initial setup is quite complex.

We have a team of six or seven internal members, plus the system integrator to maintain this solution.

We used a systems integrator selected by Meraki.

This solution is quite costly and there are costs in addition to the licensing fees.

Depending on the preference of the customer, we have some monthly or yearly licenses.

This is a product I can recommend to others.

I would rate this solution a six out of ten.

The Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN is hosted on the cloud. Users enjoy all the features available on the platform, and it facilitates seamless communication for our business operations. Integrating with the router, firewall, and Wireless Controller is advantageous.

The solution could be cheaper.

I have been using Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN for more than 2 years.

The product is stable. It is working well.

The solution’s scalability is good.

Around 20 customers are using this solution.

Technical support is good.

The initial setup is easy and takes 10-30 minutes with zero IP deployment.

It also depends on the customer's requirements. Whether it's a small or large project, the system can accommodate various sizes. LAN configurations have been implemented for better connectivity. One employee can do the deployment.

There are two values, but the first one is that the network demands more. However, the current value lies in using advanced technology. Additionally, its ease of use and deployment facilitates creating a profile of a beneficial customer.

The market is competitive. Customers do not have much money to invest. However, we have a new solution. We are looking for McAfee share.

In Vietnam, the license policy is yearly, which could be one year, three years, or five years.

Overall, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.

I have sold Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN in Pakistan's market since its cloud management features are good.

The product is useful for security purposes, specifically network security or to secure a network. It is useful for our company's clients who want to secure their network over the cloud. The product helps to manage your network centrally.

The product offers solutions for businesses ranging from small to large companies. The product offers HA solutions and redundancy features to ensure reliable operations. Some products don't offer the aforementioned features. The tool offers products for small businesses and large enterprises, with high availability and redundancy features.

There needs to be some work done on security because, with time, some viruses may emerge that one may not know about. The tool provides basic security features for VPNs like IPS and IDS. The tool should have its own lab where engineers can work on new viruses or upcoming and undefined viruses.

I have been using Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN for more than two years. I am a seller of the product.

The product's stability is good. The product can improve in the area of security. The switches provided by the product are good and are commonly used in Pakistan. There is also demand for used switches in Pakistan. In Pakistan, businesses cannot afford new switches, or they face some import-related issues when it comes to products like the Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN. Pakistan market has a few network switches in stock as a backup. In terms of network switches, the tool is good, and I rate it an eight and a half out of ten. In terms of security, the product needs to improve.

Stability-wise, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

Scalability-wise, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

If I compare the other brands in the market, like Sangfor or Sophos, with Cisco in terms of security, I see that Cisco is not a part of the Gartner Report. Cisco is deployed in multinational companies and not in small to mid-sized organizations.

The solution's technical support is good. Through Google, you can get support from the product's community website, on which you can reach out to comments to help you deal with the areas where you are stuck with the product.

The product's initial setup phase is not complex. It is quite easy to configure or deploy it due to its simple and centralized backbone.

The solution is deployed on the cloud model.

The deployment process is easy since you just need to connect the firewall. You can log in to Cisco portal and put in your password and user information, after which it opens your dashboard. You can configure whatever policy you want to implement and use it as per your requirements. You can activate your license by simply putting in the license key. If you face any issues with the tool, you can open a ticket with Cisco's support team or approach resellers. I also help people who face issues with the product. I can align my technical team to help those who have issues with the tool.

Against Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN, I offer tools like Sangfor and Sophos. Many of my company's customers opt for Sophos, considering its visibility in the Gartner Report.

only sold a few Cisco Meraki Wireless LANs in the market. My company's clients had asked me about the specific models of the product, and I had them in stock, so I sold them without having to convince them or tell them the technical features of the tool. My company's clients already know about the product via its website and how easy it is to integrate and use the scalability features. My company's clients are also aware of the tool's subscription and base licensing that Cisco offers. As I am a salesperson, I don't think it's difficult to convince IT people to use the tool since they already know about Cisco. It is a positive thing how Cisco has captured the market.

The most valuable feature of the product for network management stems from the fact that the product is flexible, has a centralized dashboard, and offers a yearly subscription-based licensing model and support while being scalable, reliable, and cloud-centric. The tool is already popular in the market.

The tool's analytics are quite capable of securing a user's network, and the insights from Cisco Meraki ITM are good as they allow organizations to get valuable insights in areas like visitor behavior, traffic patterns, and device presence in an environment. There are a lot of resellers that deal in Cisco, so its availability is not difficult.

In terms of the tool's built-in security features, VPN capabilities are quite good. Intrusion detection systems and intrusion prevention systems (IPS) can filter out malicious content and offer advanced security features. The product can offer protection against malware and offer a threat intelligence platform. The tool provides basic features that can be used as default or built-in functionalities.

Considering the technical support and security features, I recommend the product to those who plan to use it.

The scalability of the tool aligns with my organization's goals.

I rate the overall tool out of ten.

The management console is valuable. It helps manage everything.

The solution is limited to Meraki products. It does not extend to Catalyst products. Our customers have a mixture of Catalyst and Meraki products. They cannot manage Catalyst products. Cisco Meraki must improve the integration between its own family of products. It is a disadvantage.

I have been using the solution for two to three years.

The tool is stable. It is quite good.

We work with products like Ruckus, ExtremeCloud, and Aruba Central. Cisco Meraki is easier to deploy than other tools. Cisco Meraki supports both wireless products and switches.

For some customers, Cisco is not the first choice when it comes to pricing. The solution is pretty expensive.

I am a reseller. Overall, I rate the tool an eight out of ten.

We provide use cases for hospital systems and enterprise solutions where customers connect to Wi-Fi for office purposes. We also provide guest solutions.

The single dashboard of Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN is the most valuable feature for me.

In terms of improvement, the time taken to update to the cloud can be made better. There is a small delay, so if there is a way to make it real-time, exactly like a real-time update, that would be the best option. Log monitoring and log view features can also be improved upon.

I have been using this solution for more than eight years. 

It is not a very stable solution.

It is a super scalable solution. There are no limitations to the number of devices you can add.

The customer service team is awesome. Each time we call, we're connected with a new engineer who can quickly assess our issue and provide helpful guidance. However, Meraki should follow Cisco's approach, which would be more helpful for us.

Neutral

I would rate my experience a seven out of ten. It was easy.

It's a must-try, completely cloud-managed solution. It can be used for non-critical environments.

Overall, I would rate the solution a seven out of ten.

We have previously used PBXs, wireless solutions and LAN solutions. Our strategy is now to move everything to the cloud which is why we moved to using this solution. 

The fact that Cisco Meraki is cloud based and is reasonably priced has been most valuable.

It would be useful to have a service management platform integrated within this solution where we can measure the customer experience. It would also be useful to have assistance with the go-to-market strategy when using this solution.

We are a partner of Cisco and we have been working with them since 2006.

This is a stable solution. 

This is a scalable solution solution. We are based in Mauritius and since it is a small island, the scale we need fits into the range that Meraki can offer. 

This solution has a good support team and when we raise a support case, it is resolved quickly. We have a local representative for Cisco and they facilitate any support we need. 

Positive

The initial setup was straightforward and deployment was easy. 

We have our own team who are certified in using this solution and who implemented it.

I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.