Meraki MS Switches Reviews

We primarily use the solution for switching delivery. It's quite basic. It provides connectivity. They are ethernet switches.

We like the ability to perform data capture and open it with Wireshark in case of issues.

For me, the best functionality is provided by Meraki for any device. The ability to manage the devices for the dashboard online, from the online dashboard. It is great.

The product is very straightforward. 

The stability of the product is very good. 

The switch capacity needs to be improved. Today we deploy some MS switches for the data center. Previously, it was a small data center and we get the most powerful device into the portfolio of Meraki to respond to this subject. However,  it could be great to have a better capacity with 10 gigs or 40 gigs, for example.

As a physical device, it's not extremely scalable.

We started to resell Meraki devices to our customers around 2016. It's been around six years. 

The solution is stable. There are no bugs or glitches and it doesn't crash or freeze. It is reliable. 

The product is not scalable. It's a physical device and therefore limited. 

It's possible when you have virtualization, for example. For VMX, maybe, by the deployment VMX by Terraform and configuration automation, it's possible. However, with the physical devices, and so the switches, with the stack, we have scalability with the ports, with the interfaces, through a new device. I did it to the stack, however, globally, the solution, it's not as scalable as it could be. However, it's just due to the fact that it is a physical device.

The support is very good. We are very satisfied with the technical support we get. They always resolve the issues we have.

I'm also familiar with Juniper or Huawei. The main differences between them are the facility to configure or deploy, and ease of use. Meraki is a real plug-and-play solution. That's why it's really good. With Juniper in particular you do need strong skills to get the most out of it. 

It's a straightforward setup. It's not overly difficult. That's why we continue to use Meraki. I'd rate the product four out of five. 

The deployment is very quick. It takes only a few seconds to a few minutes. It's very fast. We have developed some API applications to automate the configuration and deployment without using the dashboard. We only need to put up a .CSV file and everything is done automatically. 

It is a good solution, however, it is quite expensive. I'd rate the cost at a three out of five. You do have to pay for the license, however, the licensing is quite expensive. 

I'd rate the solution ten out of ten. We are quite satisfied with the solution genera. 

I like the portal, it's really interesting.

The pricing can be made cheaper.

I have been using Meraki MS Switches for ten years.

I don't know about stability. But at present seven users are using it.

It is a scalable solution.

I have not contacted the support, my team does.

The setup is very very simple.

It was done with the help of a technical team.

It is very expensive so I want it to be cheaper.

I give it an eight out of ten.

I use Meraki MS Switches for cloud-based management and web visibility, which I can control from a single pane of glass. I have a controller that lets me manage all devices.

I found the cloud-managed dashboard most valuable in Meraki MS Switches.

Management from a single dashboard is what I want to see from Meraki MS Switches.

The level of stability of Meraki MS Switches would depend on the environment.

My rating for Meraki MS Switches is nine out of ten in terms of scalability.

The Meraki MS Switches technical support is good, so I rate it nine out of ten.

Positive

The initial setup for Meraki MS Switches was straightforward and had no problems. The product is easy to manage and deploy. Deployment only took one week.

My company deployed Meraki MS Switches based on requirements. That was the only deployment strategy.

My company pays for Meraki MS Switches yearly. Pricing-wise, the product is relatively inexpensive.

My company is both a reseller and user of Cisco Meraki solutions, including Meraki MS Switches.

I work on different models of Meraki MS Switches.

My company has multiple clients using Meraki MS Switches.

I recommend the product to others for cloud-based management. You can manage everything from the cloud.

My rating for Meraki MS Switches is nine out of ten.

We primarily use the solution as a switch.

It's better for small businesses.

The solution is well-managed and easy to deliver.

Its cloud feature and cloud management are great. They are the most valuable aspects.

The setup process is simple.

It is stable. 

We can scale the product.

Cisco gives very good support.

The pricing is very good. 

If they added the option to manage it locally, not in the cloud, it would be better. 

Cisco has to make improvements to the ordering page CCW. If it could be the same as Cisco Switches, it would be way better.

For example, Cisco has a page called CCW where you can put in and order the switches and all other items from Cisco. Meraki has some difficulties in terms of adding its products to this page. You cannot enter it. You can memorize the product number ICQ by name. Other Cisco Switches, without memorization, you can put in them in.

I've been using the solution for five years. 

The solution is stable and reliable. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. 

Technical support is very good. Cisco offers the best technical support.

I'm working with Cisco. That's all.

We found the initial setup to be simple and straightforward. It's not overly complex.

This is an easy product to scale. 

We only use it for a small business, for a branch offices and remote workers. There are maybe 50 users at this time. 

The pricing is reasonable. I'd rate it four out of five in terms of affordability.

The licensing and support last up to seven years. You pay for it once, and it lasts for around that long. 

We did not compare the solution with another vendor as we only work with Cisco. 

We're a distributor and reseller.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten. 

It's a cloud-managed, stackable access switch. It has various features, like providing quality of service to prioritize critical traffic, such as voice and video. It has various levels of support for simplified voice deployment. We also use this switch for multicast traffic. In addition, we use the switch for high capacity trunking where we require link aggregations. 

This switch is enabled with network security features. We use it for port security and MAC whitelisting, as well as DHCP snooping to prevent users from adding unauthorized DHCP servers to the network. The switch supports BPDU guard, root guard, and rapid spanning tree protocol for the loop prevention mechanism.

Moreover, now with the advent of automation in our environment, the switch supports various automation testing tools, and it's quite helpful for network troubleshooting as well.

The switch has a good speed and low latency. I will not say it's the market leader of low latency, but it competes with Arista switches in terms of latency. 

It is a compact switch, so there are a limited number of ports, and it needs improvement in terms of scalability. The number of ports should be increased. I would love to see modular capabilities, and various security features, like the ones provided by Palo Alto and various emerging cybersecurity solutions. I would like this switch to match that level of competency.

This switch is robust. It's never, ever gone down. It has not been rebooted during the last two years in my environment. In terms of stability, I don't see any challenges. I haven't seen any bugs associated with the current IOS. 

It is a scalable solution, but compared to competitors' technology, I still see some gaps. There are a lot of scalability improvements needed in this particular model.

There are 500+ on-prem users. Counting business employees altogether though, there are about 2,000. 

The support is quite easy and handy. No one can compete with Cisco's tech support.

The initial setup was very straightforward. I have been in the IT industry for the last 16 years so I didn't have any challenges with the configuration or deployment. It is a plug and play solution, and needs basic configuration during the initial setup. We pushed the configuration and provisioned this switch immediately. 

I see a return on investment in terms of manageability because a single employee can easily manage the switch. I don't need to hire additional resources for taking care of the vulnerability assessment or anything else.

I don't know the exact price, but in terms of comparison, I know that Extreme switches are more cost-effective than Cisco Meraki Switches. Cisco should have some switches that are more cost-effective.

There are some other competitors nowadays, like Extreme switches. They are cost-effective and have many security features embedded in the switches. We want to see that level of competency for modular capabilities in Meraki switches soon. I still see Cisco as the market leader because no one can compete with Cisco's fast tech support.

To someone considering this solution I would say that compared to other switches, like Arista, Meraki switches are quite robust. In terms of performance, we haven't faced any issues or vulnerabilities in the last two years. 

I would rate this solution as a ten out of ten. 

We use this solution as a switch.

The features are great.

It's scalable. The expandability and ease of use are excellent. 

We like how easy the manageability is. 

The evolution of the product was also quite good. It's always getting better and better. 

It's very easy to set up.

This product is stable. The reliability is great.

Its troubleshooting features need work. They could adopt a console approach that could be more helpful.

If they offered more advanced management features, that would be useful. It is a cloud service; for example, if I were about to buy such a product, I would be very concerned about having cloud management for my switches. Anyone can have access from all over the world, and you can reload the switches from everywhere. That's fine. However, security is a bit of a concern for the cloud.

I've used the solution for the last five years. 

The solution is stable and reliable. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. 

The product can scale well. It's not a problem at all. I've seen the evolution, and the scalability potential is one of the things that makes it more competitive than other products.

This product can work for both smaller and quite large organizations. 

I've been working with Cisco for years now, so technical support was always something that turned us on to solutions with Cisco. We are pretty satisfied.

I've also worked with Fortinet as well as Cisco. 

The solution is quite simple and straightforward. It's not hard to set up.

I'm not sure of the pricing. It's not an aspect I deal with directly. 

If I compare it with Fortinet switches or HPE switches. Overall, the benefits that you gain with the ease of use and the manageability with Meraki are good. Also, many products from other companies are more unstable. That's one of the reasons why our first choice was Catalyst Switches.

I've worked with various Meraki solutions - not just switches. I've used access points, firewalls, etc. 

I'd recommend the solution is problem-free for the most part. However, the cost needs to be taken into account, and new users should work to calculate costs before agreeing to buy. 

I'd rate the solution seven out of ten.

I'm a customer and end-user. 

The solution is used for different office locations. The client wanted to have central control from their headquarters on wireless across a number of users, traffic, NMS. It was more of a network and switching type of deployment. They have some applications which they want to track, including how much traffic is going to the user and uptime of devices. For that, they wanted more central management.

We like that it can work on a cloud basis. It gives the customer a choice to be operated from a central location and it can be controlled from there. Our customers mostly opted for having a centralized approach.

It's a proactive approach to networking for IT infrastructure. It will bring better uptime and availability to the network.

The initial setup is easy.

They need more variety in terms of models to satisfy different customer requirements. There are very limited models right now. The range of models could expand.  

They need to work on prioritizing different types of data on the network, whether it's voice, data, video, et cetera. Video needs to be prioritized in a much better way, for example.

If there are certain search protocols added to these switches that make for better network trafficking, that would be ideal.

The lack of availability of hardware is causing issues and bottlenecks. 

We'd like interoperability to continue to be improved. 

We've been dealing with the solution for two years.

The stability is okay. 

I understand Cisco has far more stable products. For example, Cisco Catalyst. That is more stable as compared to Cisco Meraki.

I'd rate the stability four out of five overall. 

The scalability is fine. It's not an issue for us. Cisco is always working on scalability.

I'd rate it four out of five in terms of scalability. This is a new product that is still being refined. However, as they are working on the cloud, it's only going to get better. 

We have around 250 to 300 users based on the switches we've deployed. It's in an international organization with many departments and many levels of people working on it. 

Technical support is good. It is good only for certain areas. Their support needs to be improved to level it out for everyone. Even a premier customer may not get answers within the next business day.

We use Cisco Meraki Switches and Cisco Meraki Wireless.

Cisco has a big problem right now. Their availability of hardware is delayed due to high demand. A lot of system integrators and companies are opting for different hardware providers as they understand that deploying Cisco will take a long time. Cisco needs to work on faster deployment. The manufacturing side needs to speed up deploying hardware to meet demand or they will lose market share.

That said, once you have the hardware, the initial setup is not hard at all. 

We have two to three engineers that can help set up the solution. It depends on the kind of project. For example, if there are four or five switches, so it doesn't take more than two days to settle that. IN that case, maybe we need to have two different engineers: one physically installing the hardware switching and doing the basic configuration and then maybe an L2 engineer who configures things on the cloud and brings different switches alive. We have certified Cisco people. We don't get any problems in terms of deployment. We can also easily handle maintenance tasks. 

I'd rate ROI a three out of five as it is costly. The ROI is not very fast. No doubt they are getting ROI with the cloud-based approach. That said, not everything is on the cloud as of now. The transition is happening very slowly. Some departments and customers are partly on the cloud, not fully. If they're deploying anything like Meraki, they're not getting fast ROI as they're not fully on the cloud. They're not fully utilizing the benefits.

The cost is on the higher side if we are comparing it with Catalyst. It's approximately double the cost. Cisco needs to work on licensing if they want the system to be deployed more. They can have the same set of licensing: standard, premium. Premium customers who don't have any budget issues can buy premium license-based hardware. However, if there are customers who want to deploy good hardware like Cisco yet have budget constraints, they should offer a more affordable tier. 

I'd rate it a three out of five in terms of affordability.

We're resellers. We've been dealing with the 300 and 390 series. 

I'd rate the solution seven out of ten. 

We have computers around the school, but we've been cutting down on desktop computers and moving more towards Wi-Fi and laptops. In the dorms, we still have a docking station which is wired, so it's a mixture. The plan is to run everything through the Meraki system, so we can access it and we can control it, whether we are inside the school or outside the school.

As Meraki MS Switches are accessible, we benefit from them as it's quicker for us to identify problems and find solutions, which means the downtime is reduced.

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. I can, for example, travel across the country, yet I can still check on how things are working, or what's not working. I can figure out what's the problem, what's the solution, and I can fix the problem, even when I'm not on-site. Easy access to these switches has been a great help.

What could be improved in this product is the price. It could be cheaper.

Gaining a deeper access or deeper understanding of certain things, and being able to look further into the workings of Meraki MS Switches, is something I'd like in the next release.

Having bundles in relation to price would also work perfectly for us.

We've been using Meraki MS Switches for three years.

I find this product stable. It's very reliable. We've only had two or three instances when one of the two Wi-Fi systems in our school fluctuated, but I'm not certain what really caused it. It has been relatively easy to fix that, and it could just be a configuration problem.

I don't see any problems with scaling Meraki MS Switches at the moment, but I will know more about it once we have replaced our old switches with this product. It's only then that I'll have a better understanding of its scalability in terms of it being a whole system, rather than individually.

We used Cisco switches, then we decided to go with Meraki MS Switches for several reasons. One reason was that the Cisco switches were originally set up by a company that was in charge of the whole system, which was run from a company outside the school. Then, we had someone come in to take charge here in our school, then we transferred that responsibility to an outsider. I then came in, and I started learning the system, so the outsider became the backup plan. 

It turned out, once we started digging into things, that the system was set up in a cumbersome and closed way, much like a banking system, rather than a setup that would be good for a school, that can rely on switches rather than closing the school into units.

Another reason was that our switches were getting outdated, so we had to do something. We started looking at various solutions, and we had to decided whether to continue the way we were doing things, which we did not like because it was cumbersome and it had to be done on-site, or if we could do it in a way that would be more accessible both inside and outside the school, while having the level of security and stability we need.

For example, we looked at Ubiquiti UniFi which was a cheaper system, but it was less stable, though I know that some schools were using that system. It was really just a question of stability and accessibility, and these were deciding factors in the system that we chose. Even though Meraki MS Switches were more expensive than the other solutions, we ended up with Meraki.

Product setup wasn't complex. I was very surprised about how easy it was to set up.

We implemented this product in-house, with the help of the head of our IT team.

This product is pricey. We are a relatively low-budget school, and for a low-budget school to have a system like this, which is a great help, it means that instead of being able to move faster towards implementing everything, we need to take very small steps. What we should be able to do in two or three years, would take us five to seven years, so the price is a drawback.

Not only do we have to buy the product, we also have to get a license for each annually. For a school that doesn't have a lot of money, that is a problem, but we still decided to go with Meraki MS Switches.

We evaluated Cisco, Fortinet, and Ubiquiti UniFi switches.

We ended up with Meraki Wireless, so we never got to use Fortinet, but we are happy with what we have. As of last summer, the state has taken charge of security issues, so we just follow them.

We set up a new firewall three years ago, and we went with Cisco Meraki firewall. We used to have Cisco and after having looked at various options, we decided on Meraki. The head of school made that decision, because he was advised that even though Meraki's a bit pricey, it's still secure and offers a high level of accessibility to us who are looking after the system, and making sure that everything's working fine. That has turned out to be rather true, because Cisco Meraki firewall has the level of security we are looking for, with the accessibility to implement all the changes we needed to do, and the access to the end points as we needed them.

Since we have a Meraki firewall, it goes through the Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN, and the rest of the school really just has switches that will be replaced with Meraki MS Switches as time goes by.

I'm unsure about what version of Meraki MS Switches we're using, but it could be the most up-to-date version. It's deployed in the Cloud, so we access the website and control everything through there. The hardware is in the building, but there isn't any specific need to access the hardware, except for the old Cisco switches that we still have which need to be accessed locally. Once we've replaced all the old switches with Meraki MS Switches, which will take us a few years, then we should be able to access everything through the cloud.

The deployment of this product took less than a day, particularly a few hours. The head of our IT team helped set it up, and it was plug and play. We plugged it in, set up the ports, and made sure that everything was working. The product worked fine. There were a few issues to begin with, but those had to do with conflicts between Cisco switches and Meraki switches, because even if they were from the same company, they were still different sets of products. That was really the only thing that took a little time to figure out.

We have 850 users of Meraki MS Switches in our school. We only have two people for its deployment and maintenance. I'm the one who handles it full time, and when I run into problems, I talk to the other guy, then he jumps in. That's all we need to maintain this product. It's being used everyday, e.g. we open up at 8 a.m. and we close at 4 p.m. We use these switches constantly, throughout the whole day. I also use this product when I'm working from home, as I'm also connected to the Meraki system.

We didn't have the need to contact technical support for Meraki MS Switches, so I can't evaluate their support.

My advice to people thinking about implementing this product is to look at the price tag, because in the end, the price will always be a big factor, especially when you have a system, then you buy the hardware, then you need to pay the license for each product annually, as the costs will mount up the more machinery you add in.

I would also tell them the same thing I always advise people when they're buying a computer, and that is to ask themselves what they need. Do you need a secure system, but is not very stable? This is highly unlikely, in my opinion. Do you need a stable system that is very accessible, both inside and outside of a school or a building? What is it you need?

I would tell them from that point, look at accessibility, reliability, stability, security, and look at all the systems that are available. There are at least four or five big names all around. Have a look at them all, and don't just jump on the first one. We all have our preferences, so just keep an open mind, have a look at the different options. For example, I commented about Fortinet this one time, that I like that system, and I think it's a very interesting system, but we decided on Meraki MS Switches and I'm happy with this product.

There's a return on investment because this product is worth it. It's so accessible, stable, and secure, and because it's so accessible, it's quicker for us to find solutions. Meraki MS Switches make things run more smoothly, making these switches almost priceless.

I'm rating Meraki MS Switches a nine, because I'm very happy with them, but I'm very skeptical about giving a ten out of ten. Nothing is perfect.