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Alcatel-Lucent OmniSwitch Ethernet Switches vs Cisco Meraki MX comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Fortinet FortiGate
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
587
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (2nd), Firewalls (1st), Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) (1st), Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (1st), WAN Edge (1st), ZTNA (1st), Unified Threat Management (UTM) (1st)
Alcatel-Lucent OmniSwitch E...
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
Ethernet Switches (17th)
Cisco Meraki MX
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
69
Ranking in other categories
Firewalls (18th), Unified Threat Management (UTM) (6th)
 

Q&A Highlights

it_user689088 - PeerSpot reviewer
Managing Director at a tech company with 51-200 employees
Jul 18, 2017
 

Featured Reviews

Vasu Gala - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager, Information Technology Operation/Presales at TechMonarch
A stable solution with an intuitive interface and quick customer service
I have been working with Fortinet FortiGate, WatchGuard, Sophos, and SonicWall. I'm not as comfortable with SonicWall because of their UI and limitations. I prefer Fortinet above all other options. When it comes to configuration, I am confident in my ability to handle various tasks, including creating policies such as firewall rules, web policies, and application policies. Additionally, I can configure VPNs and implement load balancing, among other tasks. Overall, I feel much more comfortable working with Fortinet. Fortinet has made significant improvements by integrating AI with firewalls for threat analysis and prevention. In the past 2-3 years, they have launched FortiSASE and SIEM, and they also provide SOC services. Both Palo Alto and Fortinet FortiGate are excellent. While Fortinet FortiGate comes at higher prices, the functionality and support justify the cost. They promptly resolve firmware issues and inform all support providers about configuration changes.
MK
Operational Manager at Astrah Technologies
Has enabled reliable access control with good scalability
The primary use case is access control and normal LAN usage, including internet and email. For example, I have deployed the solution in airport scenarios where there are many users The most valuable feature for me is the stability of the switches. They do not hang often and are very reliable,…
MURALI NIDAMANURI - PeerSpot reviewer
Managing Director at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Experience improved network management with flexible and secure connections
I recommend that Meraki MX should improve to be a better solution for the next release by being more competent so that we can offer it as a primary solution among all other brands, although I don't have any specific feedback, while the competitors are also ahead of these solutions. Enhancing user experience is always required. Enhancing the seamless connectivity is crucial and user experience enhancement is needed daily, otherwise people find it outdated. New features should look and be dynamically connected, and users should not be bothered frequently when connectivity issues occur. It should automatically remediate and find out the issue and then resolve it on its own without interrupting the work of the employees.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"In my area, this solution is recommended for many projects because it's very easy to do the implementation and troubleshoot and is highly stable."
"The application control features, such as Facebook blocking and Spotify blocking, are the most valuable."
"The firewalls are valuable for threat prevention."
"It is a safe product."
"In terms of cost, features, and security, everything is top-notch."
"We have used many other solutions, such as Check Point and Cisco Firepower, and I have found Fortinet FortiGate is much easier to configure."
"The most valuable feature of FortiGate Next Generation Firewall is its SD-WAN."
"​Easy to implement, and it is also reliable.​"
"The product's initial setup phase is not complex. It is easy to install the tool."
"The product is stable. It does have only one power supply. They don't have a redundant power supply."
"The solution doesn't have many proprietary protocols like Cisco's. It mainly uses standard protocols like VRRP (similar to Cisco's HSRP), Spanning Tree, and Rapid Spanning Tree, which can sometimes cause integration issues."
"The solution has a very good web interface, it makes it easy to manage everything, and the command-line interface is very powerful."
"This is a dependable switch which will help you sleep at night."
"The most valuable feature for me is the stability of the switches."
"The fibre ports that are 10 Gb capacity helped with the travel of a lot of regular as well as video data. Fibre can handle a lot more virtual data than copper twisted-pair, so we got a lot more data and a lot more traffic signals back through the fibre ports, faster, than with copper."
"As someone with long-term experience with the product, I can say that you can trust the Alcatel switches."
"MX is easy to manage, configure and install."
"I am happy with the technical support for the solution. I rate the technical support a ten out of ten."
"In general, Meraki MX is easy to work with."
"I use Meraki in my POCs and with my customers as well."
"Meraki are more intuitive than Aerohive."
"Intrusion detection and prevention (IDS/IPS): The best feature. It can detect malware, even a virus, and warn you by email about the device that has it. When the Meraki detects that something is wrong, it automatically blocks the connection or the intrusion, delivering a graphic report with all the necessary content."
"We work also with domain control (DC) from Microsoft or Amazon. We use a whole virtual appliance with Meraki."
"It is a very straightforward solution to manage."
 

Cons

"The licensing model and pricing need improvement."
"Deploying FortiGate is hard."
"Its reporting capabilities can be improved. It should have some out-of-the-box reporting capabilities and some degree of customization."
"It would be helpful to have a better tool for migrating all policy rules using an automatic script."
"In terms of what could be improved, the SD-WAN is quite difficult, because if you install the new box, 15 is okay, but if you change from an old configuration, if there is already a configuration and a policy when you change to SD-WAN, you must change the whole policy that you see in the interface."
"Right now, it's not really scalable, but it's okay for us. However, looking ahead to three years from now, we might have a problem with scalability."
"It is quite new for us, and we need to go more in-depth into the monitoring tools. It provides different features that we need to do what we want. So far, it is okay for us. In terms of improvement, in the future, they can provide a faster implementation of features. Some of the features are first available in other solutions. Fortinet sometimes takes a little bit longer than other solutions, such as Check Point, to implement new features."
"At first glance, the interface for the device is very confusing."
"The price should be lowered so that we can capture more of the market for Ethernet switches."
"The commands for the switches could be easier as I find them more complex compared to those of Cisco."
"technical support response time is sometimes very slow."
"Sometimes I feel that the Alcatel switches are not working harmoniously with some of the Cisco switches."
"I find the CLI hard to use. I wish we could do more in the GUI interface."
"OmniSwitch Ethernet Switches would be improved if cloud-based technology was provided in the Gulf region."
"We had stability issues with Alcatel-Lucent OmniSwitch Ethernet Switches 6250. One issue is with licensing. When migrating from TDM to VoIP/ToIP solutions integrated on the same architecture, Alcatel-Lucent OmniSwitch Ethernet Switches don't have the same skill level or follow the same development path as companies like Cisco. They started integrating these solutions later, which is why there's a noticeable difference in advancement."
"There needs to be better integration with the interface."
"Meraki is a good solution, but it's not the best solution out there."
"We have been having a problem with the VPN. When the energy goes down and is back again, the VPN link doesn't get established. We have to manually turn off the modems and other pieces of equipment and manually establish the VPN. It has been around one month since we have been having this problem, and we don't have enough support from Meraki to solve the problem."
"We could have more reporting options and the ability to send alarms to the administrator."
"The lack of HTTPS encryption is a big challenge that I have with Meraki."
"Meraki MX firewalls are great for small to medium-sized businesses, but other solutions are better for enterprise-sized companies."
"We have had issue with the load balancing."
"The solution's pricing should be reduced."
"I believe Cisco Meraki MX can be improved if its price were lower; it would be significantly better."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing costs are very competitive."
"The cost is too high... They have to focus on more features with less cost for the customer. If you see the market, where it's going, there are a lot of players offering more features for less cost."
"The price is okay, so far so good."
"We pay for the license of Fortinet FortiGate IPS annually. There are not any extra costs."
"Its price is reasonable. They have a clear pricing policy. It is not complicated by the number of VPN users at a time. We know what the price is. The yearly subscription for the security license is rather high, but it is all included for whatever number of users you have and the kind of functions you need."
"It is not expensive as compared to Cisco."
"No comment."
"The Fortinet FortiGate security features cost approximately $1,500 a year. The firewall itself doesn't have a recurring cost. It's the security features on top of that that you pay for."
"Pricing is cheap compared to other vendors. When we benchmark the tool against Meraki, Cisco, and others, it is usually more affordable."
"It is an expensive solution."
"The licensing for OmniSwitch Ethernet Switches is a one-time purchase with no additional costs."
"The pricing is reasonable compared to Aruba and HPE."
"The price is slightly increased, but reasonable."
"The price could be lower, but compared to the TCO of other products, it's not really that expensive."
"Like any Cisco product, the license is really expensive for small business clients. It needs to be cheaper. If you look it up, you might go, "That doesn't make any sense.""
"The price of Meraki MX is between $8 and $1,200. Additionally, we typically purchase a three-year enterprise license, and we pay approximately $899 and mark it up a bit."
"Its licensing cost could be better."
"The product’s pricing depends on the discount Cisco gives to different people."
"The license cost depends on the box. We acquired a different product line. We are dealing with MX appliance now, that is, MX6, MX54, MX100, MX250, MX450. Every box has got an identity, and it has got its own specification. Every box has got a different license fee. We deployed Meraki MX in UAE when it was not a mature product. We took a risk, but we were successful. We saved a huge amount of money after implementing and removing all the MPLS and leased lines. We got a broadband connection because Meraki MX could work on a broadband connection. We have drastically saved a very good amount of money, which was one of the successful things apart from the successful solution."
"The larger MX products are on the expensive side."
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Answers from the Community

it_user689088 - PeerSpot reviewer
Managing Director at a tech company with 51-200 employees
Jul 18, 2017
Jul 18, 2017
With a good diagram and keeping in mind the whole routing part, it is really simple configuration, I have no knowledge on Alcatel switches but you will not have any problems for compatibility ...
2 out of 13 answers
AB
Founder and Lead Network Consultant at Airowire Networks
Jul 12, 2017
Hi, Could you elaborate on your requirement. What do you mean by "integrate" ? What do you intend to do ?
AS
Deputy Manager at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
Jul 12, 2017
The Meraki MX100 is an enterprise security appliance designed for distributed deployments that require remote administration. It is ideal for network administrators who demand both ease of deployment and a state-of-the-art feature set. This security appliance provides the following new features: Two GbE SFP connections (requires optional Meraki SFP-1GB-SX transceiver). USB port, to support approved 3G/4G cards for failover to cellular networks. 1TByte cache storage for WAN acceleration. LAN 2 port can be configured to be a LAN or WAN connection, allowing support up to 2 WAN connections. Dedicated management port. Front-panel rack mounts. Now want to know about your issues. Is it a deployment factor with Alcatel switches ?
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Construction Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
University
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Healthcare Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business360
Midsize Enterprise135
Large Enterprise190
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise3
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business42
Midsize Enterprise20
Large Enterprise16
 

Questions from the Community

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From my experience regarding both the Sophos and FortiGate firewalls, I personally would rather use FortiGate. I know...
What are the biggest technical differences between Sophos UTM and Fortinet FortiGate?
As a solution, Sophos UTM offers a lot of functionality, it scales well, and the stability and performance are quite ...
What do you like most about Alcatel-Lucent OmniSwitch Ethernet Switches?
The new web graphical interface is much better than before. We now have easy access to the command lines. They're all...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Alcatel-Lucent OmniSwitch Ethernet Switches?
In terms of pricing, Alcatel is cheaper than Cisco, however, MikroTik is the cheapest. I cannot comment on the pricin...
What needs improvement with Alcatel-Lucent OmniSwitch Ethernet Switches?
The commands for the switches could be easier as I find them more complex compared to those of Cisco.
Fortigate 60d vs. Meraki MX67 for a small company without a dedicated IT Department
We have Meraki Mx devices now, we are looking to replace them. But that is because the Meraki MX platform lacks SSL I...
Which is better - Meraki MX or Cisco ASA Firewall?
Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) software is the operating software for the Cisco ASA suite. It supports netw...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Meraki MX?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Cisco Meraki MX is that for more than five years, Meraki li...
 

Also Known As

Fortinet FortiGate Next-Generation Firewall
Alcatel-Lucent Ethernet Switches, OmniSwitch Ethernet Switches
MX64, MX64W, MX84, MX100, MX400, MX600
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, IBM, Cisco, Dell, HP, Oracle, Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, Vodafone, Orange, BT Group, Telstra, Deutsche Telekom, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, CenturyLink, NTT Communications, Tata Communications, SoftBank, China Mobile, Singtel, Telus, Rogers Communications, Bell Canada, Telkom Indonesia, Telkom South Africa, Telmex, Telia Company, Telkom Kenya
Bayonette, California State University (CSU), Centre Hospitalier Carcassonne, Centro Universitšrio de Brasilia (UniCEUB), China Tianchen Engineering Corporation Co. LTD, Citta Della Speranza, City of Frankfurt, City of Ogden, City of Vila Franca de Xira
Hyatt, ONS
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