Meraki Dashboard Reviews

We use this solution to provide Wi-Fi access within the organization.

Using this solution reduces the amount of time that I have to spend managing our network.

The most valuable feature of this solution is the single pane of glass. It has nice features like heat mapping and rogue AP detection. It can analyze the traffic that it is picking up from what may be a rogue access point, and it is able to identify those and send relevant notifications.

Another helpful feature is that it can dynamically change the channel that the AP is using. 

It would be helpful to have the ability to create a floor plan based on an existing PDF or JPEG, which is automatically converted into a usable network map.

The stability is very good. So far it has not gone down, and I haven't experienced any issues with it.

This is a very scalable solution. The APs are relatively lightweight, and we have many of them being managed by one controller. 

I haven't yet needed to use technical support.

We were previously using prox and Wi-Fi APs. We were having all kinds of issues; there was poor visibility, and we had to log in to agents individually. Sometimes the WAN interface would just break, so you would have to reboot it then begin troubleshooting once it came back online. There was a need for a centralized solution.

The initial setup of this solution is very straightforward. You have to purchase the license for the Enterprise, and then purchase a license for each AP. Then you create a login with that license and you can build out your networks. It is easy to configure, and this includes defining your access points.

I am the only person who maintains this solution for our organization.

We used CDW to assist with our implementation and deployment, and our experience was very good.

I don't have an accurate measure for ROI, but the time savings suggests that there is something there.

The licensing fees are $180 USD, per AP, for three years. I don't recall the initial startup costs.

I did not shop around very much. I had heard about what this solution could do and choose it based on that.

This product saves me time and I am very happy using it. It is a great product, but nothing is perfect. 

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

We use this solution to create VPN tunnels between remote sites and our core.

It has made creating VPN tunnels between remote sites and our core a lot easier. To create a VPN we need to deal with multipoint VLANs that we have between our different sites. Using this solution has meant that we don't have to create a bunch of specific policies, such as firewall exceptions. Instead, we just have the Meraki Cloud profile set up properly.

The most valuable feature is the single pane of glass that gives you multisite visibility.

It has the ability to push a configuration to multiple devices, or you can use the single pane of glass to login to any one of them. It saves a lot of time if you have to make a change on the fly.

The one issue that we have had is that the VPN tunnel would go down unless you worked out with the ISP that you would be using a static IP address on the WAN interface. If you're allowed to just be dynamic then whenever the port and IP changes, it will break the VPN connection and it does not always come back up. Our ISP has the dynamic IP addresses change on a cycle, so this was a problem for us.

So far, stability seems good, aside from the collapsing VPN tunnel issue that we were having due to having a dynamic IP address.

We haven't scaled the product enough to give an accurate answer, but so far it has met our needs.

We have been in contact with technical support, but I have not dealt with them personally.

Previously, for the remote VPN, we were using Aruba. There is a certain amount of complexity, and we had issues in terms of scalability. The Meraki solution was easy to use and allowed us to separate the traffic. It had to be split between our general inter-LAN that includes internet access, and data that is prioritized because it is handling 911 traffic.

The installation was pretty straightforward. I obtained my Meraki certification in one day.

We worked directly with the Meraki team.

ROI is hard to gauge because we are a Not-for-Profit organization. 

My advice to anybody who is implementing this solution is to attend the Meraki classes and obtain your CMNO certification. You have to be familiar with the dashboard, the visibility, and the different products that you will be working on.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

Our primary use case is to deploy and manage the wireless APs and system switches.

One of the ways Meraki improved our organization is just the simplicity of deployment and scalability. We could easily see and monitor the bandwidth at all the stores easily.

The feature that I find most valuable is the product's ability and simplicity.

Probably the thing that could use the most improvement is the terminal monitor issues on ports. According to Meraki support, we need a third-party program to integrate other, non-Meraki switches if they don't have that integrator already. It is not a problem with the Meraki switches, of course.

The stability of the solution is great. The only problems we had is an issue with the firmware, but they replaced that right away and it solved the issue.

We think the scalability of the solution is great as far as the wireless AP. We expanded, so far, by ten access points. Eventually, we are going to do 30 of them.

If we experience any problem I can call technical support right away. If I have to do something like replacing a switch, they send it to me within two business days.

I was not in that position to make any type of call on the product we selected and used at the time it was implemented. 

The initial setup was really pretty straightforward.

The APs are pretty easy to deploy so we did not need the assistance of a vendor or consultant. We just got support directly from Meraki is we had any issue.

I am not in the position to evaluate the return on investment.

Cost and pricing falls outside of my responsibility.

I was not in a position to be involved in the evaluation of options.

As far as this solution I would rate it as a nine out of ten from my experience and comparing it to what I know about other solutions. It's really easy to use. The technical support and customer experience are great and that just adds value to the product.

Any advice I have for people considering the solution is that if they want something that is going to work and be simple to deploy, this is a product they should strongly consider. I don't think the simplicity of the product is matched for what it provides.

My primary use case is managing the LAN, the Local Area Network, in our shops. We have a total of 40 shops in France, so I'm using Meraki for managing my LAN, my access point, my switches my VLAN, my SSIDs, etc.

Meraki is easy to use. You don't have to be a network engineer to use it. That's why I like it. I'm in IT, I know how our network works, but if you give that solution to my mom, for example, she would have used it like a normal, she could have opened a shop for example. That's what I like about Meraki Dashboard - all your switches, all your access points are all in one place, and it's easy to use. 

The MDM needs improvement. I know that we used to use the MDM for a long time, for one or two years, but we had to leave it because it wasn't really good enough for us. THe MDM should be improved.

The stability is okay. In three years, we've only had two or three problems, but one of them was our fault. The other one was on Meraki's side, but it still worked. Meraki was not working, we couldn't use them, but the products were okay, the LAN was okay. So I guess the stability is great. 

We have five administrators that work on the dashboard.

Technical support is great. They've been great.

We used Aruba for about six months before Meraki. We switched because we thought that the Aruba Dashboard was really poor in terms of features and things you can do in management. Also, the managing area of Aruba was really bad compared to Meraki. That's why we switched.

The initial setup is really easy. You just have to open an account. It's also really easy to add equipment.

We used the Meraki team, but beyond that, we didn't get help from anyone else. We installed all the switches and all of the access points.

We thought about Aruba, but the features weren't enough, compared to Meraki.

We use the solution every day, every hour. We usually check the dashboard once a day.

Be aware that it's really easy to use, so you can easily make the wrong changes for example, but can get help easily from good people. Meraki is very accessible.

It's a solution that can be used by anyone - by administrators, by end-users, by a lot of people. You have to be aware that it is pretty easy to be used, but you have to use it well. Use it well and it will be fine.

The MDM, however, is bad. We're using another MDM now because Meraki was so bad.

I would rate the solution 9 out of 10. 

We acquired more than two hundred and fifty Meraki APs as part of a multi-site acquisition. We bought the licensing, stood up a Meraki Dashboard and imported the APs into our Dashboard. A super easy transition of the Wireless LAN.

There is no need to swap the hardware at all the locations, and importing the APs into the Dashboard was a simple and quick process. Building the environment in the Dashboard was quick as well. Overall, the changeover was painless from the wireless standpoint.

Cloud management is nice and easy. There are no controllers to deal with upgrading and maintaining. It is easy to see all of the devices are online, and if not, which ones are down.

I am concerned about the fact that once your licensing expires the devices stop working and become a brick.

The primary use is with the Managed Service Provider Dashboard. I work for an ISP, and we provide Meraki solutions to our customers.

In terms of the operation side, the Meraki Dashboard has made it much easier to use and configure from one place. There are tools embedded in the dashboard to troubleshoot, instead of looking at various network elements, you just have the one dashboard to view everything.

The feature I find most valuable is the single pane of glass where you can configure a monitor view, all from one dashboard. For example, on the wireless side, you can configure it under the configuration panel, and then view statistics like location analytics, user analytics, etc.

The product can be improved around the captive portal portion. It may be helpful to have maybe some popups or blurbs that just guide you in terms of how to use it or explain what a certain input means. Also, for example, the summary dashboard is under Organization, instead of under Network and sometimes it gets confusing where to actually find the summary dashboard. 

For me, from a usability or user journey perspective, it can be a bit more intuitive. For example, I want to see the summary from my Network but I have to go to Organization. Also the guides: they are great, but it's very difficult to find user guides, specifically on how to use every single feature. If I have to draw up the user guide, it's quite difficult to find the content. And maybe something which is connected with the support, or the price, or something like that. Or functionality, like more features.

I find the stability of the Meraki Dashboard very reliable and stable. It's got the built-in mechanisms like warm spares, automatic solar, from my side, it's been very reliable. I've always been able to connect to the dashboard. There haven't been any outages. We haven’t had any stability issues.

In terms of scalability, we are planning to roll it out to the rest of our 400 stores. We've only got one solution that's live right now, which is a combination of their security appliance, which is an access point. For the Wi-Fi, many of the guests who come through the store are using it. The internal staff is using the Wi-Fi and the LAN. It's the store that sells our product, and they're using the full stack of Meraki right now.

The technical support that I've experienced so far has been very good. The guys used to literally log the ticket on the dashboard, and they answer us. It's normally back within a day or so, so they've been very helpful.

Before Meraki Dashboard, we didn't previously use a different solution. From my side, I haven't used anything else. But the technical teams have used the traditional Cisco RSR's, and their Aironet Wi-Fi solution, and it's significantly more difficult to deploy those solutions.

The initial setup was very, very intuitive and easy to use, in terms of installation. We've mainly worked on the wireless access point, but there's education that's starting to happen within the NSP environment. You need to get the guys up to speed. And this is a very different way of configuring and doing things, that's the learning journey, but once we actually are up to speed on how to use it, it's much quicker than the traditional use cases. They defined all the test cases and use cases that they'd want to test after deploying. It was pretty successful from the Meraki side, but internally, it was the education side that was lacking because the guys didn't fully understand how to use it, at that stage. And that's why it took so long to deploy.

For the implementation, we ourselves did the POC, but we did have a representative from Meraki here that was guiding us for about a week.

From a pricing perspective, they are still expensive. 

Before choosing we didn't really evaluate other options. The guys are used to using it, but in terms of troubleshooting, they have to access many different systems. The reason why we did a POC with Meraki is because the sales representative came down to visit MTN. There's a Cisco partnership that's in place. They gave us the solution of Meraki and the objective. There was a rationale behind why we should do this POC, and that's why they moved. It was more of a selling initiative. They sold the solution to MTN, so we didn't choose it because the other solutions were not working, it was a sale.

Regarding this solution, there are a few additional comments: from my side, because I'm a managed service provider, and we sell and manage services to our customer, I feel what's lacking right now is the technical training to up skill and manage the service provider. In South Africa, a lot of training is not available. In terms of technical training, there's none of that, apart from the CMNO training.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

The primary use case of this solution is to provide a wireless and networking solution for the office or home. I use it at home and at work. 

It has improved my organization in the way that we've got a much better wireless coverage than we had before, and secondly, we have the visibility of all the users.

The most valuable features would be its ease of use and the easy integration.

You can't really clone or replicate a device, that sort of feature would be useful. You can clone the site but you cannot clone the device.

As far as I know, it is very stable. 

The scalability is unlimited. You can scale as much as you want, at least for the environment that I'm in. We don't have thousands, we've only got under ten. It's right for our organization. I think scalability-wise it's capable of scaling up to around 200, maybe a couple thousand. It's all cloud based so we don't control anything.

We have around 45 users using this solution. Their roles are primarily developers. We only require one staff member for the deployment and maintenance which is me. 

It is used in the office environment and if we get more people joining us, we might need more Meraki access points and maybe more filters. 

Technical support is pretty good. They come back to me with the answers or at least help me with how to get answers.

We switched to Meraki from Fortinet. We switched because it was not easy to manage. 

The initial setup was straightforward. The guys from the Meraki website were quite good.

The deployment took a few minutes but the congregation took a couple of days. 

I did the deployment myself.

Licensing is around under 1000 pounds. The licensing is either one year, three years, five years or ten years and during the licensing, we can choose to renew it per year or per every three years. We've got a license for three years. It's about 160 or about 200 pounds each.

I would advise someone considering this solution to go for it. 

I would rate it a nine out of ten. 

Our primary use case for this solution is network security and reporting.

This solution has improved our organization by centralizing control of multiple clients and sites.

The most valuable feature is their support, and they get better every day.

The pricing for this solution needs to be improved.