Meraki MS Switches Reviews

All of our endpoints are connected to our servers via the Meraki switches. Every user goes through them and it mirrors a cloud portal that allows you to administer it.

It hasn't really improved the way our organization functions. It's very similar to any other switch that I've used, although it is easier to manage than other switches.

The licensing model needs to be improved. The way they license their products, I'd rather just pay for a device by the device, and not have to pay annual subscription fees.

We have been using Meraki MS Switches for about two years.

This product is very stable.

This is a scalable solution and everybody in the organization uses these switches. This includes the president and CEO, the business development underwriters, and everybody else. In total, there are about 75 users.

I have not used their technical support.

Prior to Meraki, I used HP switches. I changed because they were too old and it was time to replace them. They were at the end of the normal lifecycle and Meraki had some great reviews, so I figured that I'd try them out.

The initial setup is straightforward.

My advice for anybody who is implementing this product is to do your research to make sure that it's exactly what you need. These are powerful switches and they can do a lot. They probably do more than most people might need so just make sure that it's the right switch for you.

To me, this is a product that meets all of the needs that anyone could possibly have for a networking device. I mentioned the issue with the licensing, although all of the manufacturers are now going with that licensing model. I think that I have that problem with anybody, at this point.

I would rate this solution a ten out of ten.

We are partners with Cisco and I'm the company CEO. 

I like that this solution is easy to configure and it provides complete visibility of the graphic end point. 

This is quite an expensive solution so I'd like to see the cost reduced. The complete installation can be very expensive because the switch doesn't have an option to perform fiber connectivity.

I've been using this solution for five years. 

The solution is scalable and stable. 

I have had good experience with the English support but I'd really like to see some technical support in Italian.

The initial setup is straightforward. 

It's an expensive solution in some environments but I would recommend it. 

I would rate this solution a nine out of 10. 

We are a system integrator and Meraki MS Switches are one of the network infrastructure products that we implement for our clients. My goal is to give the proper service and proper ideas. Our customers for this product include educational institutions, manufacturing plants, and banks.

The most valuable feature is cloud management. In particular, if you are required to manage the switch remotely then this is a good solution.

The SD-WAN features are very good.

I don't think that the cost is a problem, but sometimes the price requires convincing the customer of the value.

We have been working with Meraki Switches for the past 10 to 12 years.

Stability-wise, I have not had a bad experience in the past and none of my customers are complaining.

Scalability has not been a problem.

The Cisco technical support is good and we have had no problem at all. When we require help then they are excellent.

I work with and promote many different switches including the standard Cisco and Meraki products.

The initial setup is very easy to complete.

Overall, this is a good product and I am actively promoting it. 

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

We are a consultancy and we work with a variety of networking products, including Meraki MS Switches. Our primary use case is cloud orchestration, where you can log in from anywhere and manage our devices remotely.

The most valuable feature is the ability to orchestrate the network from the cloud.

These switches are simple to use and the user interface is good.

Technical support can be faster to respond to non-telephone originated inquiries.

I have been using Meraki MS Switches for the past five months.

We are satisfied with the stability and plan to continue using this product.

I would rate scalability at 60% because it doesn't have the core functionality required for aggregated interfaces. For example, you can not use a virtual device context, so you can't scale easily.

We have close to 300 users in the organization.

The technical support is awesome. However, when you leave a case, they will not immediately contact you unless you first call them and explain that it is of high priority. They will respond immediately but it is important that you contact them by phone, first.

I used to work primarily with Juniper switches but I also work with Cisco and Meraki products. I was not part of the decision to use Meraki.

The initial setup is very straightforward and they can be deployed within minutes.

We have the hardware on-premises but it is a cloud-based, SD-WAN solution.

I normally deploy these switches myself.

For cloud usage, I recommend this product. 

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

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.

When it comes to troubleshooting, in the past we had to take the console and do configuration changes, and we had to be on location or have a VPN connection to access it. But with Meraki, there is the advantage that you have dashboard access via the internet and you can work on it from anywhere. With Meraki switches, there is virtual stacking. Let's say you have two branches where two different switches are located. I can take a few ports from switch 1 and few ports from switch 2 and I can do a virtual stack between these ports. And there is a port schedule, as well. For example, some customers want to do make budget choices to save power or something. There is a port schedule option to give power for access points through these PoE ports on a schedule you choose, like during office hours. Morning 9:00 to evening 6:30, and it will work only Monday to Friday. I can schedule so these ports will be running those times only. In an annual scenario, this can mean more savings for the customer.

You can select multiple ports at a time in a checkbox, and you can do a port configuration. If uplinks are required, you can configure that, too. There are a couple of tools available in the Tools section where you can do ARP, Ping, LED status, etc. If any network goes down or is getting any warnings, you'll get an immediate amber symbol. We'll get alerts and an immediate email even if one link goes down or anything is wrong. We require some additional integrated tools for when a switch is down, like WhatsUp Gold, or SolarWinds. So on the back-end, we need to integrate our email servers into the process. We need more tools for that. But in the dashboard, it all comes together and gives greater visibility, including the UX pack if you want - everything will be there.

The features part is good. Everything in terms of access and everything else.

In terms of what could be improved, there's API. For example, we recently implemented Microsoft Azure. We have it integrated now into the dashboard for authentication. Dashboard authentication includes local users which we are creating in the dashboard itself. We integrated Azure with our local active directory. As the administrator in IT, I can log into the dashboard with my AD credentials only, so we used Xero and SAML with the Microsoft Azure. It's working fine. Similarly in the camera. Generally, the camera is in the cloud. In the camera, every field requires you to enter some information. If you have a cloud archive, it will be directed towards your Meraki cloud based on whatever storage license you have, 90 days or 30 days. But we worked on a different approach. We developed some more internal applications with other partners. We are pitching data from the Meraki camera, and we are putting into our internal storage with the Python script in the back-end.

Another thing is CMX. There is a location tracking for the employees who are inside, and with Meraki there is a Bluetooth option with a separate radio. They have a separate Bluetooth radio, Air Marshal radio, 2.4 and 5 GHz, for all the different radios, but it's all ELM mode in the old access points. It serves the clients as well as monitors the rogue access points. But in Meraki, we have a separate radio for it to monitor all the Bluetooth clients who are coming and who are identified from the dashboard. We will send it through the API to the location-scanning API to a third-party application and it gives you greater visibility. We can customize our own application of the dashboard. For example if you have a retail shop, you can put your store map on there and you can track the clients, like how many clients have visited. We can customize it. We worked on that customization pack.

In terms of troubleshooting, if we get more tools there is an issue. Our pack has some internal access, right? In traditional solutions we can go to the CLI and we can see whatever you want to change and you can play around with it. But in Meraki, if they got additional tools maybe it would help. In terms of MS I see some complications. There are some voice-related services that some customers are expecting, so they want to put an MS firewall in Azure or AWS, and they want to ship the traffic from that firewall. For example, I am at different branches, so the initial firewall will make the decision. They are looking at that kind of scenario. I hear from some of the customers with MS, that there are some voice-related, SIP services. So it's a limitation. If you have a voice service with AmEx, I saw something that SIP ALG will not support AmEx. So that's one limitation here.

I have been working with Meraki Switches for the past year. I have actually worked with all Meraki products, not only a particular one, as it is a complete stack. I've worked with them for a couple of POC's that we did for the customers. They were implemented mostly in firewalls and access points. A feature we recently implemented for one location was Mindtree.

In terms of stability, it is stable.

You can scale it up. You can take any traditional scenario that you have a license for and scale up. I'm working with 200 or so people, so I just bought a few access points and a few switches. If you compare Meraki with the traditional, every switch or every firewall and every access point, every WLCL switch in the traditional way requires some licenses. If that device has a MAC throughput capability, I need to go for another device. If there is a WLCL pack, it requires another device I need to purchase. But with Meraki, there is nothing like that, the license will cover the hardware, RMA, and the licensing plan.

Recently, it converted from the quote elimination to party-wise licenses. If you have a device license, you simply add the licenses and you can play around with it. There are more restrictions, like if you see access points with MR, ENT it will come with an MV, so it's not about the model. For example, today I have an MR42, tomorrow I'll buy some MR53 or MR87. It is independent of the model and you can add whenever you have the API licenses. Similarly, if you have a camera license, you can add. If you have MDM or MV, you can add. It's unlimited. It is scalable, and it gives you flexibility and security. Every device will establish a tunnel with official encryption towards the Meraki cloud and all the devices will be securely connected and it will take less than 1 kbps in terms of configuring data. 

We have worked on the homes of CEO's and directors and up to to hospitals, retail and manufacturing establishments. Everything is supported and scalable.

They give 24/7 support, so whenever you have an issue, you can write or call directly if you feel that it is higher-priority. You can simply call the toll-free number and they'll immediately come to the call and help. In terms of any troubleshooting, they will do it from their end. Because we have some limited access in terms of troubleshooting, if you want to do some changes like firmware-related bugs or something, they will fix it from their end on the back-end.

The initial setup is very simple. I ordered the devices and immediately the software is loaded and you'll receive a dashboard key so you can start the configuration. Once the device is running you can simply play around with it.

It only takes minutes to set up for basic configuration. If you're looking for integrations you may need to do some registration or back-end coding or something. Apart from that, if it's a dashboard it is a configuration template. If you have multiple branches, you can create one template for other branches.

I recommend Meraki MS Switches. If the user wants more flexibility in terms of configuration and manageability, I would definitely recommend implementing it.

On a scale of one to ten I would rate Meraki MS Switches a nine.

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.