Meraki MS Switches Reviews

We have some Cisco products, although right now they are not part of our core integration, but we use all the Cisco at our branches mainly.

We have routers and switches mainly. We have some Catalyst, we have some Meraki, and Catalyst and Meraki. And then of course, the router series, the 2941.

Meraki MS Switches came in because it was just a donation from some partner. That's when we started using them, but initially, we were not using them. It has been one year since we started using Meraki MS Switches.

Meraki MS Switches are access switches.

The most core feature is that cloud configuration and access.

Unlike the other switches which are on the infrastructure where you have to first go through VPN to access whatever switches you want, you can easily access these from wherever you are, as long as you have internet. The ease to manage is a significant advantage.

Any Cisco product that we have on our network, on our WAN, we can easily tag it as long as you have done the basic configuration. It is easily accessible and identifiable.

We have been using this for over 10 years.

Cisco is a very stable platform. Even though we haven't upgraded firmware and all that for a long time, it can still perform. Unlike the other switches in the infrastructure where you find you have to constantly upgrade, they will warn you about vulnerability and all those. When you're scanning, it will tell you that there's a lot. For Cisco, once there's a release of firmware and all that, it's always very stable for a period of time.

We have not replaced Cisco switches, apart from issues to do with product or power failure and maybe other reasons. We have not replaced them quite often compared to these other products. They are quite resilient.

It is easily scalable. You can easily expand it or change and upgrade without any problem.

The support is good. Though, as I mentioned earlier, you have to pay for it, which is a little bit costly as compared to the other products.

We previously used XTREME, Huawei, and all that.

The functionality is more or less the same, but when you look at the end-of-life for the product, you find that Cisco has a little bit extended end-of-life cycle compared to the others.

It was quite tricky for Meraki MS Switches because of that whole setup of theirs. But eventually with the available documentation, we found our way around it. It's not as direct as the old Cisco products.

We work with a partner.

We have some very old products which are out of support. The cost of the support and maintenance bundle is quite costly for Cisco. The initial acquisition of the product itself is quite costly, and then the support where you have to keep them under warranty, it's quite costly, honestly.

I've worked with Cisco for quite some time now, so I don't really find that as an issue.

For the functionality that we want right now, it is normally sufficient. I wouldn't complain honestly about the functionality that it offers.

Meraki MS Switches were not bought by us; it was just a donation, but I can see the performance and whatever is quite good. We haven't actually invested in them. That's why I wouldn't know and wouldn't say anything about the cost and all that.

The overall rating for this review is 8.

All the products we deliver are mostly Cisco products, primarily infrastructure including routers, switches, firewalls, and wireless equipment. Some customers purchase ACI solutions from us.

SD-WAN is not prevalent in our business because the provider typically supplies the SD-WAN solution to the customer.

Switches are our main focus, particularly the Catalyst line. We have some projects where we propose Meraki MS Switches to customers.

Cloud management is the most valuable feature in Meraki MS Switches.

The ease of deployment and management stands out, along with the fact that customers do not need to purchase additional network management solutions. They can access the portal and perform configuration tasks themselves. The replacement process is also very straightforward.

Currently, there is no need for many more features or functions on Meraki MS Switches. Customers purchase the infrastructure and Meraki MS Switches are combined with wireless solutions that come together as a service.

Feature additions are not critical because our customers typically purchase Meraki MS Switches for POP sites and small branches rather than enterprise deployments.

I would like to see AIOps as a feature in Meraki MS Switches in the future.

Visibility and root cause identification would be valuable when customers encounter performance issues. Wireless issues are particularly complicated due to coverage and performance concerns. Shorter troubleshooting time would be beneficial.

Cisco is migrating Catalyst Center to be managed by Meraki as well, which is part of the solution today. However, the features and functions are not identical. Customers may choose to install Catalyst Center instead of Meraki cloud due to missing features or functions.

I have known about Meraki MS Switches for more than five years. Today, many customers request Meraki MS Switches because of the cost and service management considerations. Last year, Meraki became popular again in Thailand.

SD-WAN is not prevalent because the provider typically supplies the SD-WAN solution to the customer.

I rate the technical support for Cisco Meraki as excellent, giving it a perfect score.

From the customer perspective, Cisco products are rated very high. This is because their engineers have experience with and strong knowledge of Cisco products.

Cloud management is now available on small switches without subscription requirements from other vendors, though Cisco offers this differently. That brand is very small and not intended for enterprise use.

Hybrid deployment would be valuable for Meraki MS Switches to provide better flexibility when some switches lack internet connectivity.

Synchronization to the cloud for hybrid deployment requires a proxy, which may present security concerns as it could be seen as a backdoor to the system. Meraki MS Switches may be positioned behind the firewall in a secure zone where customers do not want any device accessing the internet directly. Local access options for customers with the same functionality as cloud management would be beneficial without requiring direct internet access for the switches. In serious network environments, customers have significant concerns about this requirement.

I have heard from customers that they have concerns about transitioning to Meraki MS Switches because it requires cloud access exclusively. I rate this review as 7 out of 10.

I am still using Ruckus and Cisco products. I work with Cisco Meraki basically. We are using Cisco products, including Cisco Meraki MR access points and MS switches. I use MS switches and Cisco MR access points. I work with Cisco as a partner.

The biggest advantage of Meraki MS Switches is that there is no CLI, making configuration very easy as it is just plug and play.

The best features for me include the new AI Insights installed and the good troubleshooting purposes for Meraki.

Cisco is more advanced than Aruba.

The operational efficiency of Cisco in a critical IT environment is good, as Cisco is the best option, while for non-critical environments, other switches can be considered.

The technical support from Cisco is good, but we have to take a contract ID for support, which can be a bit expensive compared to other vendors.

We have been using MS switches for more than five years.

There is zero downtime; Meraki MS Switches are reliable and stable.

We can extend MS switches and have multiple plants using the same solution. For coming new projects, we are using Meraki and Cisco switches.

I would give the support a rating of eight to ten.

I have worked with Aruba and other switches.

I did not face any challenges when deploying it. The setup is straightforward.

Meraki MS Switches are somewhat expensive.

The difference I see is that Cisco is user-friendly and can be used easily, while other vendors require some command.

If we talk about hybrid and distributed enterprise networks, there are certainly challenges that Cisco helps to resolve. End-to-end visibility affects troubleshooting capability. I would rate this review a nine overall.

I have experience with Cisco products as I implement a lot of them. For example, I implemented switches and access points when I worked for infrastructure in a motorcycle company, and I implemented 199 wireless Cisco access points for a hospital.

I also implemented Cisco Meraki MX and Meraki VMX when I worked for NS BlueScope. For the office zone and IT zone, we separated the IT and OT segments. I implemented Meraki for IT, but we used Cisco for OT.

I am still working with both products. I work with Meraki for the IT side, but I also use Cisco access points for the OT side.

I do implement Meraki switches because I work as an infrastructure security engineer. When I worked for NS BlueScope, I made a change because almost all of the switch office zone reached end of service for Cisco switches. Then I changed to Meraki for all IT areas.

From a security view, Meraki MS Switches are easy to patch because normal Cisco switches are very hard to patch or update IOS. With Meraki MS Switches, I can set up auto patching when usable. For example, I can set patching and auto patching at midnight.

I use the Zero-Touch Provisioning feature for security and try to use Zero-Touch for IT security. Zero-Touch Provisioning helps streamline my deployments by ensuring that every system does not trust anybody or anything, requiring identification and authentication while implementing MFA. Every request includes not only external but also internal network traffic, which I have to declare for verification by using authentication.

My assessment of Layer 7 application visibility on my network management strategy indicates that I attach to normally connecting and implementing everything on Layer 7, but sometimes I have to choose lower layers of the seven-layer model.

Network access controls have helped enhance security. I use role-based access control by role-based access permission. I have to implement authorization for permission, and every owner has to allow access. I create policies and steps for requests for access from different departments.

I evaluate the benefit of virtual stacking in managing my network switches by using VLAN for implementing segmentation because many companies have security issues. This is the best practice for separating segmentation for each level. For example, most companies need to separate IT from OT side and implement deep segmentation from OT. I have to separate production to protect security. I use VLAN because micro-segmentation can be very complex and require upgrading hardware. However, it is an easy way to implement segmentation using firewalls for each level for security reasons.

Network cost and sustainability impact my network cost. I have experience implementing greenfield projects. Normally, I design redundant core switches to distribution switches using star mesh and redundant links, sometimes utilizing EtherChannel in Cisco switches for redundancy. For example, I implement EtherChannel from distribution switches to access switches for redundant links for robustness if any link breaks.

Meraki MS Switches are easy to manage, but I believe they are more suitable for use on the IT side because Meraki faces the internet, requiring an open connection through the internet for control. It is not the same as Cisco switches, which operate via command line. I normally use command line for configuration, while Meraki utilizes a cloud-based dashboard that necessitates a constant internet connection for configuration. Therefore, I find Meraki MS Switches more suitable for the IT side.

The improvement needed for Meraki MS Switches is the ability to connect in the worst case when I encounter internet issues. When I cannot connect to the internet and need to configure or connect directly to Cisco switches or access Meraki for changes, I face difficulties.

When Meraki MS Switches can be configured without an internet connection, I think I can use Meraki MS Switches on the OT side.

The only improvement I seek is configuration without an internet connection.

I am still working with both products. I work with Meraki for the IT side, but I also use Cisco access points for the OT side.

I do not have any problems with Meraki MS Switches.

I find the pricing of Meraki MS Switches quite similar to Cisco's prices. I think they are cheaper and better.

I rated Meraki MS Switches an overall score of eight out of ten.

Meraki MS Switches is a web-enabled configuration infrastructure that allows us to monitor and manage our switches across different territories from a central point, which is quite beneficial for our organization.

Meraki MS Switches is well accepted, and it is a product we value in terms of operational efficiency in my IT environment.

The product optimizes the experience in a hybrid or distributed enterprise setup fully.

The end-to-end visibility offered by Cisco is very commendable and quite good.

We are currently reviewing the AI application around Meraki MS Switches conference management and our meeting rooms environment, including video conferencing capabilities. We are looking into that and have yet to make any decision, but that is the next level. We are moving away from a conventional environment to a no-WAN environment, so we are scaling down our on-premises firewall and converging everything. Those are the things we are working on.

Cisco has given us one or two presentations on AI capability, and we are still reviewing.

For now, the current system fits and satisfies my expectations, so for the future, I do not know if there are things I may want, but for now, I cannot think of anything else to add or improve.

I started with my Ghana office as far back as five years ago, and I have migrated some other offices, including the Nigeria office. I have three offices in Nigeria and some other offices, and we are very satisfied with it. It is working well.

Meraki MS Switches is very reliable, very stable, and easy to troubleshoot. We have the dashboard which we built an AI import into to do a summary and notification for us, so it is very seamless. It works very effectively, and we do not have a problem.

Downtime is a normal occurrence in any environment, but the question should be how we manage it when it occurs. Basically, there is no way you can have a seamless environment without any downtime, but most times, the downtime may be hardware-based. Perhaps something happens to one of the nodes or things that are quite easy to detect and change. Recently, we did an upgrade on the wireless access point which we completed over the weekend, and they are all working because we needed to improve their signal level. We accomplished that with the patches provided to us, and it worked very well. The switches are quite reliable.

Meraki MS Switches scaled perfectly with the growing needs of our organization.

In the West market, we have over 3,000 people, and in the East market, we have over 3,000 people, so that is over 6,000 people using it in our company.

Support is very effective; we receive direct support, and the support is excellent. We do not have a problem with that at all.

I give Cisco an 8 out of 10; I cannot give them a 10 because there may be one or two issues, but I think they are better than others.

They are more proactive and very effective, and they handle issues effectively and are very prompt, which is why I am giving them 8 out of 10 because there is some room for improvement when it comes to response time.

They are competent because it is their product; they know the product inside and out, so supporting it should be an easy thing.

I used Cisco switches before Meraki MS Switches.

It is a global recommendation; I work with PwC, and globally, it was recommended that we move to Meraki MS Switches. All those Cisco switches are text-based configuration equipment, so we decided we needed a web-enabled configuration of switches that would allow us to manage our offices in a close-knitted way and achieve better performance. Additionally, Cisco is already pushing Meraki MS Switches, and they are putting more energy into the Meraki technology.

Most of our team members are CCIE certified; they are experts in this field, so they do not have a problem with the deployment.

I am the Head of IT, so my role is to monitor the implementation. I have my network expert who is doing the technical work, and we have meetings together once we agree on the technology and the design concept. They are the ones who do the detailed work.

Basically, we have our network administrators; I have about four of them.

Cost is not the issue for us. Meraki MS Switches might be more expensive than other products, but we believe that from all analysis, Meraki MS Switches is able to deliver the kind of quality in terms of service delivery that we want, so we are satisfied with it.

In principle, we reviewed other options; unfortunately, our standard has always been Cisco, so we decided on Cisco because cost is not the issue when it comes to our decisions. Performance is what matters.

I do not know the model version, but I know that we are using more or less the later models; my Ghana office is about to replace the existing Meraki MS Switches because what we have there has reached end of life, but I do not remember the model. I can check.

I give Meraki MS Switches a 9 out of 10 overall, as it is quite good.

We have Cisco partners, but we also have a global account manager; that is where we purchase Cisco products directly, not just from any third party or from the AWS marketplace.

We do work on other Cisco products at the moment besides Secure Access and XDR, including Catalyst switches, SD-WAN, and Meraki. We work extensively on Meraki switching and routing with the switches, routers, and wireless. Meraki MS Switches is a pretty mature solution, and since we are dealing with Meraki extensively, we are quite comfortable recommending Meraki MS Switches solutions to our customers.

The concept of SDN has changed the way people work, which has been helpful in identifying the features we find most valuable in Meraki MS Switches.

The deployment process for Meraki MS Switches is quite straightforward. Since we have been working with the solution for so long, we are quite comfortable and know exactly what to do or how to build up the solutions.

Meraki MS Switches absolutely scale well with the growing needs of our customer's organization. Meraki MS Switches has a pretty wide range of models so that we can fit solutions whichever way or whichever specialization of the network is required. We can find specific models which will suit any situation.

Their marketing strategy is good. The market alignment and all those processes are done through the distributors and that is quite effective.

Price-wise, Meraki MS Switches is high, but since our customer's acceptance is good, that works for us. The only thing is if the price was slightly lower, then it could have been more affordable to a certain set of customers who find it on the expensive side. It could gain an additional user base if the prices were slightly lower or with some other models which are in the lower category.

The only thing about Meraki MS Switches is the pricing that could be lower. Otherwise, the product is easy to use and it is a mature product. Whatever customers need, Cisco can provide.

I have been working in this field for the last four to five years.

I would rate the technical support by Cisco a nine because support-wise, we are comfortable.

We mostly work on the services as a partner and a reseller. We are not focused on selling, but we are mostly focused on the implementation aspect.

Mostly our customers purchase Meraki MS Switches through third parties because Cisco does not market directly. They work through system integrators. We are associated with some of the larger integrators and we offer the services on their behalf.

The most frequent competition we see to Meraki MS Switches is from Aruba. There are others, but most of the competition is from Aruba. They are the strongest competition.

I would not say that the advantages of Aruba are only pricing; feature-wise they match up pretty well, and since Cisco is the leader, others do follow the features which Cisco evolves.

I cannot think of any weaknesses or any room for improvement for Meraki MS Switches right now.

Feature-wise, I would rate Meraki MS Switches a ten. I cannot think of any additional features I would like to see in the future to make the product even better at this moment.

Cisco optimizes the experience in a hybrid or distributed enterprise setup. SDN helps in that situation for end-to-end visibility offered by Cisco. It gives a single pane of glass to observe the whole network.

My overall review rating for this product is ten.

I am using it in the Government industry. I work for UNBS. We use Meraki MS Switches for aggregation. Our company has about 1,000 to 2,000 users.

I find the central management and the cloud dashboard features of Meraki MS Switches most useful and the management dashboard.

It's useful because I can monitor from our branches effectively.

The traffic analysis capabilities help us to know how much traffic is coming from the branches, because our internet link is aggregated at the head office. So it helps us to be able to either upgrade our links or downgrade them, depending on what kind of traffic we see coming through.

What could be improved is that when a switch disconnects from the internet, you can't make any changes to that switch. Sometimes the switches lose internet connectivity, and we can't do anything to manage them or change any configuration until the internet is restored.

I've been working with Meraki MS Switches for two years.

I don't have any complaints about the stability of Meraki MS Switches.

I have not faced any challenges with the Meraki MS Switches.

They're quite scalable for my environment.

We plan to increase the usage when we get good information from the monitoring.

I have never contacted Cisco support for any issues on Meraki MS Switches.

Positive

It's different from what I was used to before I started with Meraki MS Switches, but once you get into it, it's easy.

I used Cisco switches before Meraki MS Switches.

I would rate the setup of Meraki MS Switches six out of ten.

The deployment process is quick now that I'm used to it, but the first time it was challenging.

The first time it took me about two hours to configure Meraki MS Switches.

The price of Meraki MS Switches is reasonable.

I use Cisco products and Meraki MS Switches. I am a user on the user side.

Network security is handled by our firewalls and other solutions.

I have not explored the area of network management AI in Meraki MS Switches.

For other switches, when you buy one, you can just start configuring, connect it to the network, and it works. With Meraki MS Switches, you have to first whitelist the MAC address, let it have internet, then you can manage it.

They're deployed on-premises.

They're quite acceptable, so I recommend them to those who want to use Meraki MS Switches.

The biggest benefit that I see in Meraki MS Switches is central management and the cloud dashboard.

I rate Meraki MS Switches 8 out of 10.

We are working with Citrix and router, but in Cisco for Cisco vendor only. We are taking from them since 2015. 

The main use case involves some small business customers needing one router, one switch, and two to three access points. It is easy to handle the devices with just a small knowledge of switches.

Meraki MS Switches have allowed us to access devices from anywhere in the world through the cloud. This eliminates the need to be physically present, as I can troubleshoot and work on devices remotely.

The most valuable feature is the ability to access devices from anywhere in the world through the cloud.

It would be helpful to have more features like an iOS interface. Most people are familiar with the Cisco commands, and it would be beneficial if the switch could be accessed by GUI configuration and by normally accessing the console.

We have been using the solution since 2015, and we began taking from Cisco in 2016.

The devices are reliable, and there is no indication of issues so far. If something happens to the device or hardware, Cisco will automatically change the device by the next business day.

Customer service and support are effective. If the devices are licensed, the support team will assist you depending on the severity level of the case.

Neutral

Pricing is affordable, and licenses for the cloud need to be purchased every three to five years.

We are recommending all of the features available in Meraki MS Switches.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.

We are using Meraki MS Switches to create a local site LAN for branch offices or other sites, as we manage and deploy all these switches centrally for our many international offices.

The feature that I find most valuable in managing network traffic with Meraki MS Switches is the possibility to have an overall view from the web portal, along with alerts and logs that are analyzed by an AI tool to provide a straight read and pre-analyzed reasons for problems, which improves network troubleshooting.

From our experience using Meraki MS Switches in branch offices, the improvement I've noted is the ability to manage all devices together from a single portal, which enhances management, while security largely depends on configuration rather than product functionality.

From my perspective, I don't have any indication for improvement regarding Meraki MS Switches, as our usage is quite basic and we don't need very sophisticated features. For core sites, we are still using Cisco switches, and we are evaluating Arista instead of Cisco for the core. However, for branch offices, Meraki MS Switches are more than enough and integrate well with Meraki Wi-Fi.

I don't have any indications for features that could be added to Meraki MS Switches to make them more versatile or appealing to customers, as what they provide currently is more than enough for us. I believe there is some room for improvement in scalability.

I have been working with it for about two years.

There have been no main issues when we deployed the solution. It was straightforward installation.

On a scale from one to ten, I would rate the stability of Meraki MS Switches at an eight.

In terms of scalability, I would rate it a seven.

In terms of technical support of Meraki MS Switches, I can't provide feedback since we haven't had the need to get their support often—maybe just once—so I don't have enough experience with support requests to evaluate their responsiveness or helpfulness.

Positive

We had four engineers who participated in the installation.

I haven't seen any specific return on investment from implementing Meraki MS Switches, as I can't provide any numbers. There could be benefits in global management, but I can't quantify any improvements, such as a ten percent increase.

We don't utilize automation in Meraki MS Switches, and although we know it could be helpful, we still tend to manually deploy and configure devices.

Regarding pricing, it's hard to say if it's expensive or affordable, as it depends on the comparison. For our usage and needs, the price is reasonable, though of course, lower is always better. I would rate the price as a six or seven.

We want to test the integration of AI in Meraki MS Switches in the future, but we haven't used it yet.

I would recommend Meraki MS Switches as a good solution for branch offices due to their ability to provide good global single-point management. This is the best feature for deploying devices worldwide where local support is lacking. The hardware is standard, and it's not a differentiator, while the unique aspect is the web management via the Meraki portal.

On a scale of one to ten, I rate Meraki MS Switches an eight out of ten.

We use Meraki MS Switches for larger companies, as part of our organization, where they are connected to the servers here via VPN. They are used daily.

The stability and workflow of Meraki MS Switches have most improved our network management. I also appreciate the high availability offered by the solution. I use it because the environment is working fine with no major problems and it's easy to manage.

Meraki MS Switches is a complete solution. I don't have specific feedback for improvement. However, there was an issue with the uplink when the port was removed and had to be reinstalled, which caused a temporary dropout.

For three years.

I find Meraki MS Switches to be stable, with no significant issues reported.

I would rate the scalability an eight out of ten.

I don't have much experience interacting with Cisco technical support.

Positive

Before Meraki switches, we used a mixed solution of Cisco switches. There were no problems with these solutions, but they wanted a more unified approach.

The initial setup was conducted by a third party. I'm not directly involved in the setup process.

A certified third-party team handled the implementation of the solution.

Meraki MS Switches, including their licensing, are somewhat expensive, particularly when compared with competitor solutions like HP.

I recommend Meraki MS Switches for larger companies rather than small businesses. Small businesses might benefit more from other solutions.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.