Meraki SD-WAN Reviews

We primarily use the solution for two purposes. One is to connect the different locations, and the other is for security.

The outer VPN is the solution's most valuable feature.

The dashboard is user-friendly. It's very simple to use.

The solution could be improved if it added more features, especially monitoring and reporting features.

The solution is stable.

The scalability is okay, but the solution is much more suited to small and medium-sized companies and isn't really suited for large ones. If you have 500 to 1000 or 2000 people it's okay. For a large international company, it's not the right product. At the moment, we have about 2-3,000 users on the solution.

The technical support has been very good. We're satisfied with the level of service they offer.

The solution is straightforward. As long as you can get all of the required information from the client, it's very easy. 

How long it takes to deploy depends on the requirements. It can vary. To configure it is easy, but in most cases, we don't get all the information from the customer which can hold things up a bit.

We have about 20 people for deployment and maintenance.

We handle the deployment ourselves.

Licensing is on a monthly basis. There are also fees for technical support.

We're a Cisco partner.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.

Meraki SD-WAN is connected to branches and the data center. You can also connect branches or connect remote users to their respective offices. It enables users working in hybrid environments, whether from the office or home, to access their applications on the cloud.

Firstly, the solution manages other market products on the same dashboard. It is very simple and can be managed in three clicks. Secondly, There are many device models on Meraki MX devices. Also, it has a license with variable duration from one year to five years.

The product supports small and medium business solutions. It could be improved to support more enterprise use cases.

The solution can support more security features like the Cisco firewall.

I have been using Meraki SD-WAN for three years.

The product’s stability is very perfect.

The solution’s scalability is awesome. You can scale it up.

We recommend this solution to small and medium-sized businesses.

The initial setup is simple and common.

I rate the product’s pricing a five out of ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive.

Meraki SD-WAN is a combination of two products: Firewall and router. When you compare these options with other vendors, you will not find the same as Meraki. Meraki is best for small and medium business solutions.

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

We are a tech services company and the Meraki SD-WAN is one of the solutions that I provide to my customers and have experience with.

One of my clients was able to optimize their traffic by having the Meraki device direct all of their branch traffic through the DIA (direct internet access), rather than through the WAN. The WAN was corporate-wide, meaning that prior to using this solution, all of the branch traffic had to be routed through there.

The most valuable feature is application performance monitoring and being able to browse packets dynamically based on priorities. For instance, I have a customer that has multiple connectivities across five different sites and they wanted to leverage SD-WAN for business and application intelligent routing. They wanted to be able to assign higher priority to packets that originate from mission-critical applications.

The port density should be improved because this solution is limited to two. We are getting more and more use cases where clients have more than two internet connections and require more than two ports. There should be three or four ports. It is possible to work around this limitation by using a layer two switch, but it does not provide the same flexibility as the statically assigned port.

The price of this solution is too high for smaller companies in Africa, where it is the enterprises that can afford it.

Meraki SD-WAN provides a very stable environment.

For example, when I travel out of my city, I still have remote access to my Meraki device. I can access things like my camera feed, I can see my dashboards, and I can manage users. The connection is almost always on, 24/7, with no downtime. In cases where there is downtime, it is almost always a problem with the provider and not the Meraki device.

The technical support from Meraki is fantastic. I do, however, see a bit of resentment when it comes to trying to integrate Meraki with other products such as Cisco ASA or Fortinet. I can understand it because they probably don't have much experience with the products from other vendors. When it comes to supporting their own product, they do a fantastic job.

This is a very straightforward deployment, especially compared to some of the other solutions that I have worked with.

The length of time required for deployment depends on the level of complexity and the environment. I've had some locations where it has taken three weeks, although two or three days is usually enough, once the design phase is concluded.

Meraki solutions come with a choice of several different subscription options including one year, three years, five years, seven years, and ten years.

Overall, this is a very good solution. I like products where you can deploy them and then go to sleep because they are watertight. It isn't going to give you headaches from support calls at 3:00 AM from a customer saying that the site is down. I definitely recommend that people look at the advantages of Meraki, and in particular, the Meraki SD-WAN because of the access to the cloud management interface.

If you ever had a problem with SD-WAN then you do not have to drive to the corporate head office or use a VPN. You can always access the dashboard from anywhere, as long as you have the required privileges on the portal.

The only complaints I have are about the port density and the pricing. They are doing a fantastic job, although there is always room for improvement.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

Instead of having MPLS or direct, separate internet connections at each branch location, we can use SD-WAN to route the traffic to data centers. If someone is hosting applications or other web servers in a data center, we can route that traffic toward the data center where the application server is located, and they can access a wired local service provider.

It's deployed on the cloud and can be managed from the cloud. It only needs to be connected to the internet, and then it will start communicating with the Meraki Cloud. If it's connected to the cloud, it will sync the configuration on the cloud to that device.

Meraki AutoVPN is an interesting feature. If there are multiple network connectivities in an organization, Meraki creates an AutoVPN. It creates a channel automatically.

The UI is user-friendly.

The granularity could be improved. It's not very granular for URL filtering or content filtering. If you want to do a specific route or a specific rule, that feature is lagging a bit. 

The stability could also be improved.

I have used Meraki SD-WAN for two years.

I would rate the stability as eight out of ten. It's quite stable, but we've had issues in the past.

I would rate the scalability as eight out of ten.

I would rate technical support as nine out of ten. Support is pretty knowledgeable and assists us in whatever manner they can. It can take about 30 to 45 minutes  to connect because of longer hold times.

Setup is easy and straightforward. Deploying the SD-WAN hardware needs to be done statically. Once you have found the IP address, it connects to the internet. That's the only thing where physical assistance is required. The rest can be managed via cloud.

If you're doing the deployment remotely, only one remote person and one technician is needed. If you are onsite, then one person can do the deployment.

We did the implementation in-house. The documentation on their portal explains everything. We just had to go through the documents if we needed any assistance. It was pretty helpful.

I would rate this solution as eight out of ten.

For a larger enterprise level customer, I would recommend the MX450 or MX400 series.

We are customers of Meraki and I'm the company product manager. 

Meraki has a sexy interface, they've done a great job with it. 

The solution sometimes drops VoIP calls, which is a nuisance. The solution is not true SD-WAN, rather L3 VPNs. All they do is put a wrapper around it so that you don't have to configure it, but it lacks controllers. 

The solution is stable, despite the occasional VoiP dropouts. 

The solution is scalable. 

The company provides excellent technical support. 

Positive

It is pretty easy to set up with the caveat that it's not really SD-WAN.

This is not a cheap solution. Cisco has never tried to be a price leader, it's not their focus.

If a company is looking for a true automated failover, it's important to ask some very pointed questions before purchasing it.

I rate the solution seven out of 10. 

We primarily use the solution for our branch offices.

The solution's ability to prioritize traffic is its most valuable feature.

The solution is easy to use.

The solution needs a multi-use provider portal.

I'm not on the technical side, so I don't know if there is an area of the solution that needs improvement. There is a wish button in the product, and we're fine with that. 

The pricing could be a bit lower.

I've been using the solution for two years now.

The solution is stable.

We've never had an issue with scalability. We have about 200 users on the solution.

We've only ever used the solution's technical support once and it was fine.

We didn't previously use a different solution.

The initial setup is straightforward.

We use the public cloud deployment model. We're a Cisco partner.

Due to its overall ease of use, I'd recommend the solution.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.

We primarily use it to provide SD-WAN solutions for our customers.

The solution is a whole vertical solution, so it doesn't need any other components in order to provide basic features. 

The security of the solution needs to be improved.

The adoption of endpoint services or endpoint security should be developed in future releases.

The solution is relatively stable.

The solution is not scalable for high-end customers. Meraki is really flexible and can start from really small sites, so it's better suited to the SME market. When you reach a situation where you have a high number of sites with a high level of complexity, then Cisco Meraki probably lacks a bit of flexibility.

I've never had to reach out to technical support.

The initial setup is straightforward; it's not that complex. How long it takes to deploy depends on the customer's requirements and how complex their infrastructure is.

We're a distributor. We deploy the solution on-premises for our clients.

We did evaluate other options, but we're very happy with Cisco Meraki.

The advice I would give to others considering implementing the solution would be to start small and be patient.

I'd rate the solution seven out of ten.

I'm a vendor. I sell the solution to clients. 

A lot of our customers really enjoy the Meraki Dashboard. It’s a single pane of glass. If you have their wireless, you have their switching; you have their cameras, you have their firewalls, then you do get a single pane of glass - which is a really strong talking point for us with our customers.

People are struggling a little bit with the lead times right now. It’s hard to actually get the hardware. There’s a long waiting list. That said, I’m unsure as to if that's anything that any manufacturer could really control right now.

Meraki is not viewed as an enterprise solution. It's more of a medium SMB-type solution. Although that really shouldn't be the case, I do see that it has that stigma associated with it.

I wish I was selling more of it, but I don't. We have a number of different types of vendors. It is something we sell. However, I have not personally sold a lot of it.

The solution is stable. There aren’t bugs or glitches, and it doesn’t crash or freeze. It is reliable.

The solution is quite scalable even though potential clients see it as a good solution for SMBs. It has the power to work for enterprises. It can scale.

Tech support is good. It's strong.

We sell Cisco access points and Meraki access points. With Cisco, the solution we deal with is called Viptela.

The initial setup is very, very straightforward. You set it and forget it. It’s probably easier than any other solution.

You probably don't have more than one or two people associated with maintenance. It would depend on the size of the environment. Obviously, for an enterprise customer like Starbucks, you’ve got to have hands-on people available. However, if you're just a local Chicago company like us, then I would say that it’s fine to have minimal people - usually admins - on maintenance.

We are a Cisco Gold partner.

I’d recommend the solution. I’d rate it eight out of ten.

It's typically a better solution for a company that has multiple locations. If you are a company with a headquarters and then you have locations across the country or the world, that would be the best time to look into SD-WAN. I would also say that SD-WAN is not just a wireless solution. It is also a security solution.