Meraki SD-WAN Reviews

I use the solution in my company for the firewall, specifically Cisco Meraki MX, which we use mostly for the wireless and the LAN or switching part.

The most valuable feature of the solution is the auto-VPN functionality, which helps you quickly connect the branch-to-branch kind of scenario is very helpful.

In Meraki SD-WAN, we have some limitations with the traffic shaping capabilities.

There is nothing specific that I want to say, but the solution is improving daily. The tool comes up with new features and new capabilities. The solution is moving away from small business use cases to large-sized enterprise customers.

I am okay with whatever Meraki is currently supporting in the solution. My concern revolves around the WAN part of the solution since if we consider traditional routing, it doesn't support all routing protocols. Right now, my company is very limited in BGP and OSPF scenarios.

I have been using Meraki SD-WAN for almost five years. My company is a gold partner of Cisco.

It is a stable solution. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

From a scalability point of view, I would say the tool is not so great. Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a seven out of ten. There are some limitations around the WAN protocols.

The product is a good fit for retail customers and offices that opt for a wireless kind of approach. The product is good for office locations. My company has observed that a lot of our customer base belongs to either the retail industry or are just offices.

The solution's technical support is good. I rate the technical support a nine out of ten.

Positive

The product's initial setup phase is simple.

For any new site rollout, as per our company's experience, if everything is planned out, we can get a site up within four to five hours. We require two days of some little bit of planning work over the IPs and all such things. The actual work starts once the box is connected to the internet, after which, it takes not more than four hours. It is less than a day kind of scenario.

The solution is deployed on the cloud.

The product does help with the cost savings part.

The product's price falls under the mid-range category, especially if we consider the new licensing model. The tool is not cheap anymore.

Meraki SD-WAN can be compared with its competitors' products, like Fortinet, which is almost the same as Meraki. The other competitor of Meraki's product is Versa. Versa is a better product when it comes to SD-WAN, especially when compared to Fortinet and Meraki, which are on the same level.

When we compare Meraki SD-WAN with Cisco SD-WAN or the old traditional product CatalystVPN, the tool's traffic shaping capabilities are not fully present.

The automation or UI-based features of the product are easy to operate.

My company has not integrated any AI features into the product. Meraki SD-WAN's dashboard provides my company with good telemetry functionalities. My company has tried using the AI features with Cisco DNA Spaces.

I recommend the tool to those who plan to use it.

I rate the tool an eight out of ten.

The solution was used in the city. We built a network for city areas to link some of the companies. There are networks in some cities or nearby cities.

We design and build the campus and WAN network for our customer. With Meraki's centralized dashboard, we've streamlined configuration and monitoring across all sites in day 0 and day 1, reducing administrative overhead and minimizing potential human errors. With its centralized dashboard, we can oversee multiple sites and make rapid adjustments during the early deployment window. Meraki reduced our customer's maintenance costs, allowing their IT team to focus on more strategic initiatives.

Most of the valuable features are at layer two and layer three. Included in this is the benefit of the local team, which we can call on for remote assistance. They can remotely visit our site and help with network configuration. This makes things easier compared to requiring on-site assistance for day one configuration and deployment. The remote help is a significant benefit.

They have to ask us many questions about configurations. It could be improved with some automation to trigger, for example, telemetry data, so we can determine the state of the deployment as of day zero and day one.

We have used the solution for only one year.

I was satisfied with the support. If rated from one to ten, I would give them an eight.

Positive

I was using Huawei products and ZTE products. I have never used a device from HPE, Juniper, Nokia, or other overseas companies. I primarily used local vendors.

The initial setup will not be too complicated. We are going to create small network areas.

Normally, we have three or four people on the team. It depends on the location. For example, if there are several locations, like two or three, two or three of us will deploy them, configure them, and bring them online.

Some customers have a maintenance team familiar with Cisco devices and configurations. This is why they allow us to create a solution or build a network based on Cisco requirements, products, and solutions.

The price is a little bit higher than local vendors, for example, Huawei ZTE or H3C. However, some customers require the best quality and performance, thus needing solutions and products from Cisco.

I would recommend them. However, in China, government regulations often require government-related companies or administration to use local vendors for building network and security-related infrastructures. In these cases, we do not use Meraki, Juniper, Nokia, or other similar devices. Cisco Meraki, that I have used, is a good product.

I would give the product an overall rating of eight or eight point five out of ten. The performance is good, and they have continuous innovations. We are one of the resellers, and we provide network solutions. If customers require us to use Meraki, they opt for Meraki devices or have their maintenance team.

I use the tool for some purposes related to technical checks.

Meraki as SD-WAN has improved our organization's work since it is a resilient tool and serves as a cloud-based product.

The solution's most valuable feature is its ease of maintenance. The tool's cost-effectiveness and value-cost optimization have also been helpful. In case you need the software upgrade, you can centrally push the software upgrades. You can push the application process from the central point.

Meraki SD-WAN has to significantly improve the company's network performance. Though Meraki SD-WAN's network performance is better than that of the MPLS circuit and other technologies, it can still improve.

The tool needs to focus on network stability, better prices, good performance, and low-cost bandwidth to improve its solution. I want the tool's cost to be less and performance to be higher.

I have been using Meraki SD-WAN for two years. I am a customer and partner of the tool.

It is a stable solution. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.

There has been a medium to low impact on our devices in terms of stability whenever we had to experience a downtime.

Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.

Around 100 to 200 people use the tool.

I plan to increase the use of the tool in my company.

I have contacted the solution's technical support via the web and some toll-free numbers. The tool's support team has been super helpful. I rate the technical support a ten out of ten.

Positive

Before Meraki SD-WAN, I used to use an independent router and switches from Cisco. My company started to use Meraki SD-WAN since we wanted to bypass the existing device since without it we were unable to go for upgrades.

The product's initial setup phase was fast. If one is difficult and ten is easy, I rate the product's initial setup phase a ten out of ten.

Five to six people manage the product's deployment phase.

The solution is deployed on an on-premises model.

The solution can be deployed in six months.

Five to six people manage the product's maintenance phase.

The tool helps save some money.

The tool is costly. I rate the tool's price as a ten out of ten since it is very expensive.

I did not evaluate other tools.

I use Meraki SD-WAN in our multi-branch network operations. We use it in multiple branches.

The tool is used since it bypasses the existing devices, and then we can install Meraki's router.

The tool can enhance our network security and management since it serves as a software-defined network.

I use Meraki Auto VPN feature, and it has been useful for me in the area of network performance. When it comes to network security and management, the Meraki Auto VPN feature is good, but if we consider the network bandwidth, it depends on the network connectivity. The security and management depend on the connectivity of the whole network.

The tool's performance helped overcome the challenges in network management.

I rate the tool a ten out of ten.

Meraki SD-WAN enhances connectivity across various business locations. There are around five to six locations, so we have SD-WAN connectivity.

The security features within Meraki SD-WAN support organization because this is site-to-site connectivity. There is no chance of data leaks from our side because it works through a secure tunnel.

Earlier, we used MPLS and switched over to Meraki. 

Meraki SD-WAN is very convenient to use. That’s the reason we adopted it. The configuration is simple, and maintenance is very easy. That’s why we switched to SD-WAN.

If Meraki can add more features on the reporting side, that will be convenient for us because we have to rely on a different product for monitoring and reporting. That is one of the challenges. Apart from that, everything is good.

If I gauge the reporting features, suppose for device performance-related things and transactions, in terms of throughput and the types of issues we receive on the network side. If those can come into the reporting format, it will be very helpful. 

Many customers ask for their performance, transactions, and throughput. It is very difficult to get the report from connected devices. In that case, we have to go for additional management tools or monitoring tools, which can give us good features. Like earlier, we used Cisco Works. In the same way, we need to implement another product.

In the past, I have used it up to a 250 Mbps device. If we add around seven hundred to eight hundred users, the performance degrades. Meraki might have recently added more devices with higher capacity, but I haven’t had hands-on experience with those. 

I have been using it for the last year. 

As a company grows, if there are more sites from the customer side, then we need to implement. But, the scalability has been constant over the last year. I couldn’t see much change in that. 

On the monitoring side, it’s good. 

We have mostly SMB types of accounts. For very big organizations, there are some limitations. Apart from that, it is very comfortable for SMBs.

Technical support is good. We still get prompt support from their side.

Positive

We also deal with Cisco Meraki, Cisco Catalyst, and other Cisco products. Mostly we are dealing with Cisco. Apart from them, we also handle some products from Juniper.

The pricing is reasonable. Compared to other solutions, it is reasonable.

There is a separate licensing fee for the product we are using. Apart from that, we are not seeing anything additional.

We generally recommend Meraki because it is very simple. The configuration and all those things are very simple. If you have the technical knowledge, there is very little chance of making mistakes.

Even I have given training to the L1 team, and they can handle it very well. We do not need highly skilled people to handle these devices.

I would not recommend this tool to very large-scale organizations. I have not recommended it as of now. But for small and medium-sized organizations, where they do not have many transactions and have a strength of around 500 to 600, we recommend Meraki devices.

Overall, I would rate it a ten out of ten. 

I primarily use it to connect sites to each other over an overlay network, with protection from the next-generation firewall in the Meraki ecosystem.

The most valuable feature for me is the security functionality, its integration with Wi-Fi, and the switching approach.

The license model may need improvement because if we need to renew something, we need to completely renew the license model.

An additional feature I would like is the 5G solution. It is not yet there.

I have been using the solution for more than four years. We are using the latest version, which is cloud-based.

The stability of this solution is fine. It has a Fusion version. It does what it prompts.

The solution is scalable. It is scalable for mid-tier deployments, but not for major ones.

The technical support is decent if you open a ticket, but it can sometimes take quite a while. As for product development, it's a much more difficult story, as they have a very lengthy development cycle.

It is a cloud-based solution, so the initial setup is straightforward. Onboarding a customer can be done in a few weeks.

The deployment process is easy. It's a cloud-based system that is activated by attaching the serial number, and then the system goes live. So it's easy to set up.

The license model depends on the customer and can be a yearly license, a three-year license, or a five-year license. There may be additional costs for certain licenses, such as Umbrella licenses or advanced licenses. The pricing ultimately depends on the functionality the customer requires.

Overall, I would rate the solution an eight out of ten.

We have ten Meraki devices. Our data center, main office, and other offices are all in North Carolina, and I am in Florida. 

Additionally, we have six Meraki devices in our data center. They are doing everything we need them to do. I would normally use it along with Meraki MX as well. 

I usually pass it to the senior guy since I am pretty much swamped all day from seven in the morning until midnight.

The valuable features include dual mobile and VPNs and aspects like that. Meraki Solutions setups make it one of the best products I have ever worked with.

I have probably used it for a year and a half to two years.

For the most part, the stability is good. I do not ever see issues since I manage Meraki. The only problem occurs when users are not paying attention and turn on the wrong switches, like power switches, in places they should not.

I think it is one of the best products I have ever worked with.

Whenever we need assistance, it is instant help. If something needs to be replaced or if Meraki crashes, it is instantly replaced. It is never a pain to get them to do anything support-wise.

Neutral

We switched due to the fact that the guy who installed all the Meraki devices basically convinced the company to switch to Meraki. I have worked with other solutions, yet not as much as Meraki. They all pretty much do the same thing, however, Meraki seems more reliable if set up properly.

I did not set it up, so I just manage it at this point. It was not hard to set up. The guy who set it up, whom I still work with, knows Meraki like the back of his hand.

We had someone doing it by himself. He has been in the company for eight years, setting everything up. He set up pretty much everything himself.

I would recommend the solution. It is not difficult to install or set up. In a previous company, I helped them set up since they never set it up properly for a couple of years. I figured things out faster, however, people do not realize that I read a lot too. I have read all the setups. I am supposed to be a senior network support engineer, but sixty percent of the time, I am training guys from MSPs on how to resolve simple tickets. I am sort of in between a senior network engineer and service desk manager. 

The overall product rating is ten out of ten.

We are using it for branch to branch connectivity. We have set up servers and devices all over the DCC to provide local Wi-Fi for all branches to access the server.

It is secure. To connect the other branches to us, that's all it needed.

It's very good, especially for vendors from other countries to reconnect with us. We can control and monitor everything.

Sometimes we face issues with VPN connections when someone connects from a different time zone, like from Georgia to the Middle East. These kinds of issues occur, but other than that, nothing major.

I have been working with the Meraki SD-WAN for almost ten years.

We did not face much downtime. Our business operations have been stable.

I am not aware of any limitations in terms of scalability.

Sometimes technical support response is delayed. I would rate it seven out of ten.

Positive

I have not used any other SD-WAN solutions before.

The initial setup was delayed due to shipment issues with the hardware. However, once everything arrived, we could complete it in about one to one and a half months.

We have an in-house team and support from a third-party local vendor. We have contracts with them for periodic testing. We have six people involved in maintenance — three for hardware and three for other areas.

We have seen a return on investment.

There are many cheap solutions available. Local vendors offer their own products, so compared to those, Meraki seems a bit expensive.

It depends on a business's needs. For businesses that need it, Meraki SD-WAN is good, however, there are other cheaper cloud solutions available like SaaS or AWS.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.

It's for enterprise networking. So some of the customers are from the BFSA domain, and some of the customers are from manufacturing. It's a distributed customer base.

Any customer looking for a single solution that can serve them for network security, which can serve them for the SD-Branch all branch networking. We use it for this purpose. It's used for a combination of SD-WAN and SD-Branch plus security.

Everything is under one umbrella. The Meraki dashboard is one of the valuable features which I use. I can control the devices across walls and across the landscape.

It's not difficult to set up the solution. 

The solution is stable.

It can scale well. 

The cloud area and the security area can be improved. Meraki has a limitation, especially on the cloud. If I deploy the services on the cloud and I want to make a site-to-site connection or maybe I have to do some sort of routing, inbound routing, it is not properly working with the Cisco Meraki. It needs to be matured a bit.

They need to offer proper integration of the security features. They talk about the next-gen technology, the next-gen UTM feature. It's not a complete security solution, however. 

I've used the solution for about five years now. 

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

We can easily scale the solution. 

We are supporting multiple customers that use this solution. There are approximately 5,000 people using the access. 

We are well connected with the RR account manager. He is based out of Australia. Every time, whenever we have some sort of need, he is the go-to guy for us.

Positive

We use a variety of SD-WAN technologies. 

The solution is very easy to deploy.

How long it takes depends on the kind of site you are setting up. If I'm tiering the site, and have 20 users or 30 users and have a couple of links and the security postures are not very complex, maybe I can do the deployment in a week's time. 

I can do two or three cuts over a week if it is small. You can bifurcate. I don't have any ready-made answer as to how long it will take as every setup is different. 

We do look into ROI and show clients possible ROI if they decide to go with Meraki. 

The price of the solution varies. It depends on the customer. For most of the customer deployments, we tend to do either three or five years of licensing. Having a longer-term give us some discounting in terms compared to one year.

We are partners. 

We use the MX64 deployment, although it goes all the way up to 300.

I don't want to be Meraki biased, however, if anyone is looking for the kind of solution that can include the branch office or the network security or even a Cisco Umbrella kind of solution, Meraki is the right choice.

From an SD-WAN perspective, I would rate the solution seven out of ten. I'm just cutting down three numbers due to the lacking of cloud networking and the weaker security posture.