Cisco Meraki Systems Manager (MDM+EMM) Reviews

We use location analytics to display real-time location statistics to improve customer engagement and loyalty across all the sites. It's built into the Cisco Meraki APs at no additional cost. That's one of the things that a lot of clients like. 

The data is collected by the APs, and it syncs to the Cisco Meraki cloud. This is automatically reported to the dashboard and reveals visitor traffic, trends, dwell time, news, and also repeat visitor loyalty. A lot of stores use it for this particular reason: they can gather information from repeat visitors. They can also locate single repeat visitors.

The Systems Manager provides over-the-air centralized management, diagnostics, and monitoring for mobile devices. It's managed by the organizations. If someone else needs to manage it, he/she can do it through Meraki cloud. However, it's usually managed by the organization itself with the use of its own protocol. It can be done on iPads, Androids, Macs, and PCs. The Systems Manager monitors each of your organization's devices, and it shows useful metrics like client hardware/software information, recent location, etc. that binds into your analytics and even lets administrators remotely lock and erase the devices.

It protects devices and their data, and it will also control usage with a passcode policy. Every device will have a passcode policy. This restricts employee access to, for example, app stores, gaming, and so on during work hours.

I have found the location analytics feature that is built into the APs to be the most valuable. It allows you to compare data and to single out individuals who are repeatedly coming into your store. We can observe different trends. This is what separates it from a lot of the other solutions. 

You can have a passcode policy to restrict access and can enable device restrictions and stop people from being able to use cameras. You can allow screen capture, automatic sync when roaming, and the use of a virtual assistant, or you can actually shut all these things down as well.

The cost of installing this solution can be more expensive depending on who is doing the installation. Cisco is very expensive, and I'd like to see a reduction in cost.

I've been using Cisco Meraki Systems Manager (MDM+EMM) for several years.

I think it is a very stable solution.

This solution scales extremely well.

Technical support has been prompt and very good.

The initial setup is very straightforward because they'll send you a license first, along with a username, and you get to create your password. You can go into the user dashboard before you ever get the Meraki devices sent to you and start to configure them. Everything can be configured within the dashboard itself. Once your system arrives and you're attached to the network, it will automatically report to the dashboard. The dashboard, in turn, will push out all the configurations to the devices. Everything can be pre-configured.

The setup cost can be expensive depending on who is doing the installation. Licensing can be done on a monthly basis. A lot of clients prefer to use the cloud-based option.

On a scale from one to ten, I would rate this solution at ten.

If you want something that's going to work and scale very well, and allow you to pre-configure the devices before you get them into the company, then Cisco Meraki Systems Manager (MDMEMM) is a great option. 

We primarily use the solution for iPhone management.

The ability to push out applications is a great aspect of the solution.

We can create a tag of a phone and we can create a package of applications, and then we can tag the device and say, "This device must have these applications." The solution ensures that the device gets those applications.

We also like that it allows us to get applications without setting up iCloud accounts. For some of our employees, the extra steps to have "yet another account" are simply not needed, when all they want the is the app store (and not all of the other iCloud functionality).

For example, a delivery driver - we want him to have Google Maps, Outlook, Chrome, and a Time Clock app.  We can push these apps out through Meraki MDM without having to set him up with an iCloud account.  

We've used the iOS client. The Windows client has a lot to be desired to be a full management tool. 

We first tried the Windows client, but quickly determined that it wasn't going to cut it for most Windows cases. The Windows portion of this product needs improvement.

We've been using this solution for a few years.

The stability of the solution is very good. It's reliable.

I'm not sure how the solution scales. In our experience, we've only put it on twenty devices. 

We've never contacted technical support for Systems Manager

Deployment took a few hours, initially. However, the total time to fully understand it and get into the weeds with the way it works will take a lot longer since there's so much to it. It took us a few months of testing it out here and there to get comfortable to roll it out.  Bear in mind, we didn't have a deadline, and this was being done as a side project.

in house.

Error can't divide by $0.00

We're using a free version of the solution.  But if we exceed the limit the pricing was in line with other MDM solutions.

No, we had a free license to one hundred seats of Systems Manager from our Meraki firewalls.  We have since looked at Jamf and Microsoft Intune.

There's a lot of options in the configuration and the setup.  Make a test device and a test group and make sure you fully understand what is going on before you roll it out.  For example, one setting lets you deny use of Safari, which sounds good till the user clicks a link in an email and it won't open.  *Unless you use Microsoft Outlook which allows you to pick the app that links open in.

Setting up VPP and DEP takes a little bit of effort, but these will be required no matter the MDM solution you choose. The Apple device enrollment program allows devices bought from the carrier you are registered with to show up in the account. 

On the Apple side, the VPP allows you to bulk buy apps, that's the same, regardless of which MDM solution you use.

Personally, we don't plan to continue to use it going forward. While the Apple side of the solution is great, the Windows side just has a lot of problems.

Our primary use for the product is as an enterprise mobility management solution to give access to users that are connecting to the network on wired and wireless devices.

Cisco Meraki Systems Manager is very good in terms of performance. It can handle the traffic in the network of our 300-400 user base and it can manage all the users without downtime. Its exceptional performance is allowing us to implement other solutions to service customers better.

Because Cisco products are reliable and user-friendly, we can implement any kind of setup. For example, we can set up for a geographical location. We can make it so users find it easy to access the network securely when they are in and outside the office. We experience no downtime, no breakdowns, all the user readings are exact, and it gives us quick analysis so we can apply security measures.

Because Cisco has improved a lot and is competing with other technologies that are innovative and brand new to the market, the only improvements they have to make are to keep up with the current competition and remain competitive with other solutions.

My impression is that the solution is 98% stable. I really like the devices and I am happy to have the devices in my organization.

The scalability of the solution ranks at about 9.5 of 10. It is flexible and scalable.

While pro support is available, we have not used any kind of support so far. We do the maintenance on our own. But the technical support is 100% available and they maintain certain criteria. Every three to six months they come for a review of performance and they inspect the devices every three months. We meet with them even if we do not request support and they inform us of new devices and improvements coming into the market. If there is anything you need from them, they are very good and reliable.

We previously used a GitLab runner because of the GUID (Global Unique Identifier), but the Cisco Meraki also had the GUID feature which makes it really easy to implement. Without GUID you had to learn so many devices. So GUID is very good, the Cisco console is very good, the interface is extremely good and this made it very easy to implement. You don't have to extract the logs manually, so that simplifies log-analysis. 

I had experience with Cisco devices previously so the initial setup was easy. Deployment is never complicated unless you complicate your design or implement other design management. If your planning is really good before implementation, the deployment will go well. I enjoyed using it and implementing it.

The integration was taken care of by us. We only had the devices. The implementation was our first attempt and it took only a few days. 

Our return on investment is reliability, flexibility and the ability to serve our customers without downtime.

I would rate it a nine out of ten.

We use this solution for MDM (Mobile Device Management), as a firewall and using it for their switches and access points.

Generally speaking, the ease of use and setup are most valuable to us. We have come across issues where it doesn't seem to be able to establish some VPN tunnels with other devices in a particular way that such as an ASA can do for us. But other than that, I mean, as far as the switching setup, it's extremely easy. The access point is even easier. The firewall and the  basic setup for the firewall; having the auto VPN connections, site-to-site VPN connections, come up is a very nice feature.

The one particular issue that we had is that one of our sites had a very specific VPN site-to-site setup for access into a a particular client. We could see what was coming out of the firewall, and for some reason, the client firewall was not responding in the way that we were expecting, and we were unable to get client's firewall team on the line in time for us to get it all straightened out, so we had to fall back to the ASA that was in place.

Yes, this is a stable product.

We have this product in a total of six of our sites. I could easily configure everything from one location, despite the various global site locations.

Most of the time, we do not use technical support. We do not need them, but when we do need them, they are available and will work with us for whatever length of time it takes to try and solve the problem.

It's extremely competitive and very good for a product in this sphere. It's excellent, actually, for the products and what they can handle.

Generally speaking, if it's just a mesh network within your own environment, which could be done at a fairly low knowledge level. It's when you're dealing with the external partners and stuff like that that you'll either have to really know what you're talking about to try and troubleshoot. It's a very easy solution for the most part, it's very easy to implement and very easy to administer.

We use it in a restaurant environment to provide a managed firewall and WiFi. This is very helpful.

One of our largest support call issues is the processing of credit cards. This is caused by an Internet/network issue 60 percent of the time. Knowing the state of the network remotely is a big time saver. Having the ability to alter the network and WiFi settings remotely permits us to have quick response time. For overall troubleshooting, having tools on Meraki is a time saver.

• We can quickly see if the Internet is up or down, then focus troubleshooting more quickly. 
• We can reconfigure a client’s setup remotely with minimal effort.

• Web portal: Ease of configuration and status reporting.
• Tools: It helps us see if anything has been changed in the network by another vendor or customer.

Integration with other tools, such as, ConnectWise Automate.

The price is high for the market.

Systems Manager is another cloud service from Cisco Meraki that helps you to manage all the devices in your organization. You can deploy apps to all your devices around the world in a few clicks and in a few minutes.

My employees have more secured devices. I can control what they can do with their enterprise devices, make a full and remote maintenance, install apps, upgrade apps, upgrade devices, etc.

Geofency polices are great, but it depends on how the device has the localization services configured. If the device is not getting the right GPS position, Geofency polices will fail.

I have been using it for about two years.

With Apple devices, it is perfect thanks to DEP. With Android and Windows, you can enroll devices via mail and it's very easy.

The Cisco Meraki cloud is very stable; I haven't had any problems with the stability of the service.

The scalability of this MDM is perfect. You can add all the devices you want, and you only need to tag them to apply polices.

Customer service is very good.

Technical support provides great service; you can open tickets yourself or call a phone number.

I tried AirWatch; it's more expensive and more difficult to use and configure.

The initial setup is very easy.

My implementation was through nData Systems.

We use it to create a demo for the iPad solution, control endpoint devices, and limit access to the application.

The profile settings are valuable features. It is a good solution, good for daily use. The UI is easy to learn, and the documentation and YouTube channel help us finish most of our engine work.

We have been using this solution for one year, and we are using the latest version. It is cloud-based.

It is a stable solution.

The scalability is good because we have just ten staff and can scale it. The maintenance is average.

We have not used other solutions.

The initial setup was straightforward, and the deployment was completed in-house. The deployment took a few weeks.

We have a standard license, but I do not have details about the cost.

I rate this solution an eight out of ten. I would recommend this solution because its integrated dashboard is good. In the next release, I suggest integrating a synchronization with the AD account to the device owner.

We use Systems Manager for inventory and centralized management of multiple devices.

Cisco could add SOC services.

Systems Manager is highly stable.

I think Systems Manager is one of the most scalable products.

Cisco support is outstanding. They are one of the best.

The most significant benefit is that the deployment is quick and painless. You don't need a specialized IT department to implement and scale the network. It's easy to maintain, too. It only requires one or two network administrators. 

The price could be better.

I rate Systems Manger MDMEMM eight out of 10. It's a highly scalable solution that's easy to use and deploy.