Meraki MS Switches and NVIDIA Mellanox compete in the network switch market. While Meraki MS Switches are appealing due to ease of use and cloud management, NVIDIA Mellanox is often seen as superior for high-performance networking and data center capacities.
Features: Meraki MS Switches offer seamless cloud-based management, ease of integration, and rapid configuration changes. They simplify network oversight and support remote management. NVIDIA Mellanox provides high throughput and low latency, supports both InfiniBand and Ethernet protocols, and is designed for data center efficiency and scalability.
Room for Improvement: Meraki MS Switches could enhance performance features to compete more directly with high-end data center switches. They might also benefit from supporting more specialized protocols beyond basic cloud management. For NVIDIA Mellanox, simplifying deployment and operation could extend its appeal to smaller businesses. Improvements in cloud management and user interface simplicity could make their sophisticated tools easier to use.
Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Meraki’s deployment is straightforward, thanks to its cloud-native architecture that minimizes onsite configuration. Its customer support focuses on simplifying operations. NVIDIA Mellanox requires more technical expertise for deployment, aligning with its advanced feature set for enterprise use. Their customer service is equipped for complex implementation support.
Pricing and ROI: Meraki MS Switches are competitively priced with a focus on reducing setup and management costs, offering a higher ROI in simpler setups. NVIDIA Mellanox involves a higher upfront investment but is justified through superior long-term performance and scalability in complex network environments.
The support is excellent and rated ten out of ten.
If the devices are licensed, the support team will assist you depending on the severity level of the case.
Cisco's tech support is pretty good, and I would rate it an eight out of ten.
I would assess their technical support as good—not the best, but it is good.
They're quite scalable for my environment.
If something happens to the device or hardware, Cisco will automatically change the device by the next business day.
We faced issues following firmware updates, which we now handle by performing updates outside of working hours.
I would rate it a seven because the old versions were not stable, but it is becoming stable over time.
Meraki should also consider improvements in stacking features, particularly in the lower-end models like NS130, where stacking isn't supported, unlike with Cisco traditional switching.
When a switch disconnects from the internet, you can't make any changes to that switch.
There are compatibility issues with certain Power over Ethernet (PoE) devices, which we would like to see resolved.
I think it's okay; it's the best solution for now for AI data centers.
Meraki MS Switches, including their licensing, are somewhat expensive, particularly when compared with competitor solutions like HP.
Pricing is affordable, and licenses for the cloud need to be purchased every three to five years.
Meraki pricing is a little premium compared to other vendor products.
For its performance, it's cheaper.
The control plane is in the cloud, and the data plane is local, allowing manageability from anywhere.
The most valuable feature is the ability to access devices from anywhere in the world through the cloud.
One of the most valuable features of Meraki MS Switches is its precise traffic analytics capabilities, allowing us to query the system for any place at any time.
The biggest advantage is that the vendor is the only one providing no-drop traffic.
Meraki MS Switches are first-line cloud-managed access and aggregation switches that combine the benefits of cloud-based centralized management with a reliable access platform. With cloud management, thousands of switch ports can be configured and monitored instantly over the web.
Meraki MS Switches Features
Meraki MS Switches have many valuable key features. Some of the most useful ones include:
Meraki MS Switches Benefits
There are many benefits to implementing Meraki MS Switches. Some of the biggest advantages the solution offers include:
Reviews from Real Users
Meraki MS Switches is a solution that stands out when compared to many of its competitors. Some of its major advantages are its accessibility, application visibility, and flexibility features.
Jóhann T., IT Manager at Sund Upper Secondary School, says, “Accessibility is what I find most valuable in Meraki MS Switches, because I'm able to check things and see if they're working, without being on-site at all times.”
A Senior Network Engineer at a tech services company mentions, "The top feature of Meraki MS switches for me is Layer 7 application visibility. Another positive in general is that you don't need to set up a console to the switch itself; it dials into a single dashboard where you can completely manage all your network devices."
John M., user at Baseline Consulting, LLC, comments, "I like the flexibility of the Meraki firewall. It gives you the ability to lock things down. Having multiple VLANs is helpful for the switching infrastructure and firewall. It's crucial when you have a public-facing VLAN, a private-facing VLAN, and a secure VLAN."
PeerSpot user William M., Consulting Engineer at IV4, expresses, "It is easy to deploy, maintain, and update. It has been trouble-free so far. I am still a Cisco command-line bigot, but the web interface makes it a lot easier for our help desk to interact with a client. When the clients call in and say that they aren't able to connect, it takes the help desk 10 minutes or less to look at everything in the enterprise or location. They can look at the firewall, switches, or access points in the dashboard. That's why I like the dashboard."
NVIDIA Mellanox is used for LAN in data centers, deployed on-premises for private clouds and HPC with large data needs. It includes switches for network, data centers, edge, and spine-and-leaf topology, serving as public switches, top-of-rack, core devices for infinite bands, EVPN solutions, and more.
NVIDIA Mellanox provides robust functionality with unique RDMA features, stability, and user-friendliness. Known for its compact size, low power consumption, powerful hardware, and open Linux-based software, it allows extensive customization and installation flexibility. Training documentation needs improvement, as do installation and configuration processes, which have steep learning curves. Integration with managing platforms could be smoother, and faster support response times are necessary.
What are the key features of NVIDIA Mellanox?In industries like finance, healthcare, and telecommunications, NVIDIA Mellanox is implemented to support high-performance computing clusters, manage large data volumes, and enhance data center operations. Its switches enable efficient networking setups, facilitating edge computing solutions and optimizing spine-and-leaf topologies for enhanced performance.
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