Meraki MS Switches Reviews

The switches make up part of the network infrastructure in the company.

We primarily use VLANs and Wi-Fi.

The most valuable feature is the ability to segment my infrastructure between phones, security systems, and other tasks.

The dashboard is very easy to use.

Better alerting capabilities are needed because they do not provide enough notification or detail about events. For example, it doesn't tell me if I have lost an access point, or I'm getting packet drops, or somebody is using excessive bandwidth because of a download they are doing. It is very hard to drill down on these problems and sometimes, you might have to use a third-party solution to pull the reports out.

Technical support is in need of improvement.

I have been using Meraki MS Switches for about one year.

The stability is great.

Our company has not had to scale our network. However, some of our clients that use these same switches have scaled up, and it was an easy process for them. This is in part because it is easy to change configurations on the fly.

The technical support for this product is difficult to deal with. With multiple levels, it is very difficult to get through to the right person that can help with the problem. It is disappointing because when you pay a lot of money for the hardware, you expect to get the support that you need to get.

I handle the maintenance of these switches, including firmware updates.

We paid for our switches outright, at a cost of between $15,000 USD and $18,000 USD.

In summary, this is a good product except that the technical support and alerting need to be improved. As it is now with the alerting, I get messages from the firewall before I am alerted by the Meraki hardware. It makes it more difficult to troubleshoot.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

We are a solution provider and the Meraki MS Switches are one of the products that we implement for our clients as part of their network infrastructure.

One of our typical use cases is connecting stores within a retail environment.

The SD-WAN capability is already integrated and it is excellent.

It can easily tie into the backend of Azure.

The most valuable feature is the granular visibility that they provide with a single pane of glass. It is a very useful dashboard.

The pain point for our customers is the pricing and it should be reduced to make it more competitive.

We have been dealing with this product for a couple of years.

I haven't had any problem with Cisco at all. I would say that they are pretty solid in terms of stability.

Different switch models are chosen based on the size of the site. We use certain models at smaller sites, whereas we use different models for the larger sites. Overall, scalability is excellent.

Technical support is good and they are on top of everything.

I work with several similar products by different vendors and sometimes, people buy them instead because they are cheaper.

The initial setup is straightforward. The administration is usually handled by people like the VP of technology in the company.

The pricing is high and it is where we get the most pushback from customers.

My advice for anybody who is considering this type of product is to do the research. From my experience, Meraki switches sell themselves and the only thing that people contest is the price.

I would rate this solution a ten out of ten.

There are many use cases for the solution. We implement them mainly for SMEs.

The switches, overall, are very good.

The newest switches, in particular, are excellent.

The initial setup is simple.

The problem that we saw with some customers is that it's very hard to train them to manage everything on the cloud, and some customers don't want this. 

The firewall is not very powerful. The other week, one of the switches only gave one gigabit of output. It's become a concern for our customers.

It is very difficult to know what we should do. There should be a queue available to connect over the VPN. However, there was a lack of an image in the other queue. Once, when a customer wanted to tour the system, there were issues with connectivity to the VPN, which was offputting. 

The solution is very stable. We've tested it extensively and it's very good. It's also quite fast. A company doesn't have to fear reliability with Meraki. They shouldn't expect to deal with bugs or glitches. It's reliable.

The scalability is very good on the backend. We've even run some stress tests to see how the solution would hold up to expansion and have had great results. If an organization needs to scale up, they can do so with Meraki. It's not a problem at all.

The solution offers okay technical support. Users need pretty good access to senior engineers on the technical support team. Sometimes you have really bad errors on the site and you need very advanced help. A more junior technical support staff member will not be able to assist. Meraki needs to continue to work to ensure senior staff is available to deal with those levels of calls as they happen. A user expects to have a senior engineer to take the question from the beginning to the end if big issues arise.

Last week or last month we had an issue where we really needed a senior engineer and the support staff we got originally didn't know how to answer our questions. We had to pay for a more senior engineer.

We also use Aruba and HPE switches. We use a combination.

We've found the setup to be very straightforward.

On the promotion side, the marketing team will help when something goes wrong. You can write to someone at the company and they can help troubleshoot any issues as soon as something comes up.

Typically, it only takes about one day to deploy a switch. For a simple deployment, we just take it and connect it to the new port, and then we just connect everything to the computer. It's very easy. We haven't had issues or complications.

We're an integrator; we implement the solution for our clients.

We typically sign contracts for years as opposed to yearly. One year might be a bit expensive, but if you choose a long-term contract, it's very good. The pricing is very good. It's quite competitive in the marketplace. There are others that are much more expensive than this product. It's affordable, even for small companies.

We're an integrator. We tend to test things before we send them to our customers.

We are a very small company, we are constantly looking for competitive pricing, as we don't have big budgets to throw around.

The solution is very good. From using the software to deployment, Meraki is good. Even enterprises would benefit from using the solution. Although we typically deal with smaller companies, I'd pick Meraki every time.

I'd rate the solution seven out of ten. I would rate it higher, however, we have unique needs for the VPN, and require complex software features

We primarily use the solution for clients who need LAN access points.

The solution's most valuable aspect is the ease of stacking. The configuration on the MS Switches is very good, as well as its ability to assign the LANs.

The visibility of the solution is very good.

The solution needs to improve its ability to back up the auto-configuration.

The stability of the solution is good. I'd rate it nine out of ten.

The solution is easy to stack, which makes it scalable.

Overall, the solution's technical support has been helpful. They will stay with you for hours to help you sort out any issues and will help to review or check if the configurations are good.

We also use HP switches. We use both for various clients and which we use is largely based on the client's budget.

The initial setup is quite easy. The time it takes to deploy depends on the configuration requirements. It can take anywhere from 15 minutes to two hours. You only need one to two people to set it up.

There's a license fee. Sometimes you have to pay for extra services on top of that.

In terms of advice, I'd tell others to make sure they take a screenshot of their configuration if they don't have a good backup for the platform.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.

We primarily use the solution for our production, mainly our processing, and for some internal uses surrounding the sovereignty of data. 

The technical support is very good. They offer some of the best support on the market.

The pricing of the product needs to be improved. I find that Cisco products are usually priced quite high.

The solution needs to improve its scalability.

The solution is stable most of the time, but occasionally we have faced unpredictable issues that has affected the solution's stability for a short time. This has happened only two times over the last five years.

The solution is not scalable. If you need to scale, you need to change the equipment. Currently, about 100 users in our company are using Meraki MS switches.

Technical support is very good.

The initial setup is complex. We needed some specialized techs who were familiar with the setup.  We have very complex architecture, therefore it took us a few weeks to deploy the solution.

At first we had the assistance of an integrator, but afterwards, we handled the implementation by ourselves.

We use the on-premises deployment model.

My advice to others would be that they have good knowledge of Cisco products before attempting to implement the solution. This is most important for successful deployment.

I'd rate the solution seven out of ten. I'd rate it higher if it offered better scalability and more competitive pricing.

The primary use case is for local network connectivity for our customers.

The most valuable features are the cloud management, the monitoring, and the visibility available on the report's facts on the cloud controller.

The quote-building process is challenging and it needs to be simplified.

It is difficult to create a bill of materials and there should be a bundled solution. You still have to select different items from certain locations to build the solution. You can end up leaving out certain items that are needed unless you understand how everything works. Examples are the power supply and the power cable, which are not on the list by default. There should be a top-level part number that allows you to put all of the options that are available, rather than selecting each and every item separately and putting them together.

This solution is stable. I haven't had any issues.

This solution is scalable. It is easy to expand. 

Once the implementation is done and you have endpoints, then you can easily move configurations or copy from one site to another.

We have five to ten IT managers using this solution.

I am satisfied with the customer service and technical support.

The initial setup was straightforward.

This solution is deployed on-premises, but it is cloud-managed.

To implement this solution, I had the help of an integration company and I am not an end-user.

While I had assistance in the implementation, I didn't feel that I needed it.

This is a solution that can be considered for starting a small environment, to a large environment because it is easy to scale and it gives them the inbuilt visibility that comes with the solution.

There is also the ease of integration and migration from the unfinished to the defined environment.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

Our primary use case of this solution is for connecting desktops to LAN.

I like the feature that allows us to copy conditions from one port to another.

I would like to see some automation and better integration with the editing tool.

The solution has been very stable so far.

For our current state, the solution has good scalability. We have around 400 users in our company. We use five people for maintenance. We don't have immediate plans to increase our usage, but perhaps after four or five years. 

The technical support is a good four out of five. Sometimes it takes some time for them to respond. Perhaps because of a backlog. But they always deal with the issues. 

The initial setup was straightforward and the entire process took maybe four or five hours. We did it ourselves.

We pay an annual subscription fee.

My advice to others would be to try the solution. Most of the features are cloud-based so it's easy to manage it from anywhere - even from your mobile. I rate the solution an eight out of ten. There are still some developments that need to be done. It's not perfect. But from a personal perspective, I can say that they are a good eight. Additional features that I would like to see included in the next release of this solution, is if they could create different teams for different standards, some API integration solutions, and other different applications. It could be easier to use and easier to implement. Perhaps they can also add automation.

We primarily use the solution for testing.

The solution is very user-friendly.

The solution could be simplified a bit.

For our purposes, the solution is stable.

The solution isn't scalable. 

I've had to contact technical support a few times and they have always been helpful. How long they take to respond depends on the time of the call. If I'm calling at off-office hours I can get answers quickly, but during actual office hours, there is a little bit of a delay.

We previously used HPE. We switched because we received a gift voucher after attending an IT Expo.

The initial setup is straightforward. You only need two people for deployment and maintenance.

I handled the implementation myself.

The pricing of the solution is fair. The licensing is paid on a yearly basis.

We use the MS 250 and 425 series.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten. Switches wise, I'm really happy with the product. It is more user-friendly than competitors and I can do everything myself. That's why I prefer it.