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Alcatel-Lucent OmniSwitch Ethernet Switches vs Cisco Meraki MX comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Fortinet FortiGate
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
587
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (2nd), Firewalls (1st), Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) (1st), Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (1st), WAN Edge (1st), ZTNA (1st), Unified Threat Management (UTM) (1st)
Alcatel-Lucent OmniSwitch E...
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
Ethernet Switches (17th)
Cisco Meraki MX
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
69
Ranking in other categories
Firewalls (18th), Unified Threat Management (UTM) (6th)
 

Q&A Highlights

it_user689088 - PeerSpot reviewer
Managing Director at a tech company with 51-200 employees
Jul 18, 2017
 

Featured Reviews

Vasu Gala - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager, Information Technology Operation/Presales at TechMonarch
A stable solution with an intuitive interface and quick customer service
I have been working with Fortinet FortiGate, WatchGuard, Sophos, and SonicWall. I'm not as comfortable with SonicWall because of their UI and limitations. I prefer Fortinet above all other options. When it comes to configuration, I am confident in my ability to handle various tasks, including creating policies such as firewall rules, web policies, and application policies. Additionally, I can configure VPNs and implement load balancing, among other tasks. Overall, I feel much more comfortable working with Fortinet. Fortinet has made significant improvements by integrating AI with firewalls for threat analysis and prevention. In the past 2-3 years, they have launched FortiSASE and SIEM, and they also provide SOC services. Both Palo Alto and Fortinet FortiGate are excellent. While Fortinet FortiGate comes at higher prices, the functionality and support justify the cost. They promptly resolve firmware issues and inform all support providers about configuration changes.
MK
Operational Manager at Astrah Technologies
Has enabled reliable access control with good scalability
The primary use case is access control and normal LAN usage, including internet and email. For example, I have deployed the solution in airport scenarios where there are many users The most valuable feature for me is the stability of the switches. They do not hang often and are very reliable,…
MURALI NIDAMANURI - PeerSpot reviewer
Managing Director at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Experience improved network management with flexible and secure connections
I recommend that Meraki MX should improve to be a better solution for the next release by being more competent so that we can offer it as a primary solution among all other brands, although I don't have any specific feedback, while the competitors are also ahead of these solutions. Enhancing user experience is always required. Enhancing the seamless connectivity is crucial and user experience enhancement is needed daily, otherwise people find it outdated. New features should look and be dynamically connected, and users should not be bothered frequently when connectivity issues occur. It should automatically remediate and find out the issue and then resolve it on its own without interrupting the work of the employees.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Overall, it's a great solution; the detection is great, the possibility to detect any anomaly under our match work is great, and we have a quick response."
"The solution is easy to use."
"We mainly use the IPS and URL filtering features, and they are pretty good."
"Whenever we raise a complaint with FortiGate, their response and resolution times are minimal."
"It's inexpensive compared to some of the other technology out there."
"The solution is easy to configure and maintain remotely."
"It blocks the vulnerabilities that can negatively impact us."
"We have peace of mind; we do work in a very dangerous environment, the internet, and this device gives us alerts and the opportunity to know what is going on."
"The solution doesn't have many proprietary protocols like Cisco's. It mainly uses standard protocols like VRRP (similar to Cisco's HSRP), Spanning Tree, and Rapid Spanning Tree, which can sometimes cause integration issues."
"As someone with long-term experience with the product, I can say that you can trust the Alcatel switches."
"The most valuable feature for me is the stability of the switches."
"The fibre ports that are 10 Gb capacity helped with the travel of a lot of regular as well as video data. Fibre can handle a lot more virtual data than copper twisted-pair, so we got a lot more data and a lot more traffic signals back through the fibre ports, faster, than with copper."
"This is a dependable switch which will help you sleep at night."
"The most valuable feature for me is the stability of the switches."
"The solution has a very good web interface, it makes it easy to manage everything, and the command-line interface is very powerful."
"OmniSwitch Ethernet Switches' best features are it's easy to deploy, manage, and maintain, with services coming through one vendor."
"They have very good technical support; Cisco Meraki's support is incredible."
"It has the most advanced security features, for example, layer 3 and layer 7 firewall capabilities and the end team and IPS protection. It also has IPS, and it has very good functioning of cloning services. You don't actually have to touch the device. If you have multiple companies in different countries, you don't really require this device to be touched. You can get it delivered directly to any office of a country, and then you can simply put your configuration over the cloud. It's very simplified and easy to manage. It gives a very good granular visibility about your network. Earlier, a lot of things were lacking in the network. We were unable to identify where the problem was, but after implementing Meraki MX, we are able to dig down and identify where is the problem. We can easily and quickly identify the sources and the root causes of the issues."
"Now, with Cisco Meraki MX84, we have a SD-WAN, and we only need Internet in all our branches, thus, we have an easy solution to connect new branches and it is very fast."
"The positive impact I've seen for my customers is that Cisco Meraki MX means easy management, easy setup or scale up, and flexible licensing."
"Meraki products are very solid and seem to work in harsh environments very well."
"Since it has an integrated dashboard for all the products, customers can get complete network analytics regarding what the user is doing, monitoring, and observing."
"Meraki is still best for an office FW, with simple categories, features, and SDWAN, and the zero deployment is a killer feature."
"The application visibility, performance visibility, and the failover capability for VPN are excellent."
 

Cons

"I wish Fortinet FortiGate's UI updates would be done in a more simplified way to improve it."
"FortiGate Next Generation Firewall's performance and threat intelligence could be improved."
"The learning curve is a bit higher."
"The solution could have licensing fees reduced in the future."
"Fortinet FortiGate needs to improve the protection, it did not prevent us from being attacked. Additionally, Fortinet FortiGate could provide more features for WAF devices. I should not have to purchase two solutions, it would be a benefit to combine these features into one solution."
"The improvement is related to logs. Instead of the CLI, we should be able to have more insights into the logs of the firewall in the GUI."
"The solution must improve the support provided for customers around the globe, considering the time differences in different places."
"The support costs and licensing are sometimes so expensive."
"OmniSwitch Ethernet Switches would be improved if cloud-based technology was provided in the Gulf region."
"We had stability issues with Alcatel-Lucent OmniSwitch Ethernet Switches 6250. One issue is with licensing. When migrating from TDM to VoIP/ToIP solutions integrated on the same architecture, Alcatel-Lucent OmniSwitch Ethernet Switches don't have the same skill level or follow the same development path as companies like Cisco. They started integrating these solutions later, which is why there's a noticeable difference in advancement."
"I could see them possibly creating a more intuitive software. It's very user-friendly, but there are some things that aren't very intuitive when programming the switches."
"technical support response time is sometimes very slow."
"In future versions, I would like to see improvements in networking speed."
"My customer's team is not able to understand the loophole with Alcatel-Lucent OmniSwitch Ethernet Switches, but apart from that, there are no issues."
"I could see them possibly creating a more intuitive software. It's very user-friendly, but there are some things that aren't very intuitive when programming the switches."
"The commands for the switches could be easier as I find them more complex compared to those of Cisco."
"We could have more reporting options and the ability to send alarms to the administrator."
"FortiGate is cheaper than Meraki. Even the license renewal is less than Meraki."
"Pricing is an area where the solution lacks since it is an expensive tool."
"Right now, you can postpone the update but eventually, if you don't do the update, it will install the updates automatically for you and that's something that is not working for me."
"When we do API integrations with Meraki, they have always been hard as well as tedious to build."
"Expensive licensing and firewall stops immediately working if the licence is not renewed at the expiration date."
"It can always improve pricewise regarding throughput."
"Meraki has some hidden features and information that is only privy to their engineers. If that information became available to us, then it would improve our ease of management, and we would be able to make certain adjustments instead of having to go to them."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Fortinet is competitive price-wise."
"The pricing of the solution is very competitive."
"The pricing depends on the FortiGate model we are using, ranging from $3,000 to $20,000 US dollars."
"They need to be competitive with other solutions."
"It is more expensive than Sophos. Fortinet is overall more expensive than Sophos. The small range of Fortinet, such as 60F and 80F, is more expensive than the small range of Sophos. Sophos is cheaper. In addition, if you jump from 80F Series to 100F Series, the price doubles."
"I would say that all things considered, the pricing is pretty good."
"Its licenses cost the same for different subscription plans."
"We have the full license that included all of the features and support."
"Pricing is cheap compared to other vendors. When we benchmark the tool against Meraki, Cisco, and others, it is usually more affordable."
"It is an expensive solution."
"The pricing is reasonable compared to Aruba and HPE."
"The licensing for OmniSwitch Ethernet Switches is a one-time purchase with no additional costs."
"​Other content filtering solutions that I have used had more bells and whistles, but given the cost, complexity, and management overhead, I am very pleased with Meraki’s solution."
"The product is a little expensive."
"The Meraki UTM is excellent when you buy the Advanced Security license. If you buy a different license you lost all the valuable functions."
"Pricing varies as per the type of license."
"Meraki MX is an expensive solution."
"Meraki is the best option — based on the price and the features available."
"Its licensing cost could be better."
"The larger MX products are on the expensive side."
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Answers from the Community

it_user689088 - PeerSpot reviewer
Managing Director at a tech company with 51-200 employees
Jul 18, 2017
Jul 18, 2017
With a good diagram and keeping in mind the whole routing part, it is really simple configuration, I have no knowledge on Alcatel switches but you will not have any problems for compatibility ...
2 out of 13 answers
AB
Founder and Lead Network Consultant at Airowire Networks
Jul 12, 2017
Hi, Could you elaborate on your requirement. What do you mean by "integrate" ? What do you intend to do ?
AS
Deputy Manager at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
Jul 12, 2017
The Meraki MX100 is an enterprise security appliance designed for distributed deployments that require remote administration. It is ideal for network administrators who demand both ease of deployment and a state-of-the-art feature set. This security appliance provides the following new features: Two GbE SFP connections (requires optional Meraki SFP-1GB-SX transceiver). USB port, to support approved 3G/4G cards for failover to cellular networks. 1TByte cache storage for WAN acceleration. LAN 2 port can be configured to be a LAN or WAN connection, allowing support up to 2 WAN connections. Dedicated management port. Front-panel rack mounts. Now want to know about your issues. Is it a deployment factor with Alcatel switches ?
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Construction Company
8%
University
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Retailer
5%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Healthcare Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business360
Midsize Enterprise135
Large Enterprise190
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise3
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business42
Midsize Enterprise20
Large Enterprise16
 

Questions from the Community

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What is the biggest difference between Sophos XG and FortiGate?
From my experience regarding both the Sophos and FortiGate firewalls, I personally would rather use FortiGate. I know...
What are the biggest technical differences between Sophos UTM and Fortinet FortiGate?
As a solution, Sophos UTM offers a lot of functionality, it scales well, and the stability and performance are quite ...
What do you like most about Alcatel-Lucent OmniSwitch Ethernet Switches?
The new web graphical interface is much better than before. We now have easy access to the command lines. They're all...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Alcatel-Lucent OmniSwitch Ethernet Switches?
In terms of pricing, Alcatel is cheaper than Cisco, however, MikroTik is the cheapest. I cannot comment on the pricin...
What needs improvement with Alcatel-Lucent OmniSwitch Ethernet Switches?
The commands for the switches could be easier as I find them more complex compared to those of Cisco.
Fortigate 60d vs. Meraki MX67 for a small company without a dedicated IT Department
We have Meraki Mx devices now, we are looking to replace them. But that is because the Meraki MX platform lacks SSL I...
Which is better - Meraki MX or Cisco ASA Firewall?
Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) software is the operating software for the Cisco ASA suite. It supports netw...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Meraki MX?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Cisco Meraki MX is that for more than five years, Meraki li...
 

Also Known As

Fortinet FortiGate Next-Generation Firewall
Alcatel-Lucent Ethernet Switches, OmniSwitch Ethernet Switches
MX64, MX64W, MX84, MX100, MX400, MX600
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, IBM, Cisco, Dell, HP, Oracle, Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, Vodafone, Orange, BT Group, Telstra, Deutsche Telekom, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, CenturyLink, NTT Communications, Tata Communications, SoftBank, China Mobile, Singtel, Telus, Rogers Communications, Bell Canada, Telkom Indonesia, Telkom South Africa, Telmex, Telia Company, Telkom Kenya
Bayonette, California State University (CSU), Centre Hospitalier Carcassonne, Centro Universitšrio de Brasilia (UniCEUB), China Tianchen Engineering Corporation Co. LTD, Citta Della Speranza, City of Frankfurt, City of Ogden, City of Vila Franca de Xira
Hyatt, ONS
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