Meraki SD-WAN Reviews

For Meraki SD-WAN, I always go with retail companies.

The most valuable features I find in Meraki SD-WAN are that it's easier to manage cloud, cloud-managed, with a simpler deployment from Cisco Viptela or Cisco enterprise SD-WAN solution, and it combines the access point, so it is a much simpler deployment, usually fit for retail.

Meraki SD-WAN is deployed on cloud. The product is easy to use, and I think its interface and centralized management are good.

The pricing of Meraki SD-WAN depends compared to which vendors, because it's a bit pricey, so not all retail would go for it unless it's a big retail company, but it depends on your comparison.

I usually recommend multiple vendors in mind because it depends on the customer's requirements; you have Fortinet, you have Aruba, you have Huawei, and you have multiple options that may be cheaper than Cisco.

Regarding Meraki SD-WAN functionality, it depends on the situation, but I would recommend this product if they have the money. It all comes down to the requirements first because I try to fit the best solution for them. It doesn't depend only if I'm carrying only Cisco, it depends on what their exact requirements are. Cisco is one of the top vendors with the most stable performance in many solutions, but it all comes down to the customer requirements.

Mainly the pricing is a concern, and it doesn't fit enterprise customers. For enterprise-grade customers, it's not going to fit; it's not possible to use Meraki SD-WAN.

It's not just because of the price; it's for enterprise because of the limitation in features and capabilities. Meraki SD-WAN is not fit for enterprise-grade customers or big deployments.

I have been dealing with Meraki SD-WAN for three to four years.

I don't think they have any problems with the actual solution.

It's scalable with extensive features for Meraki SD-WAN. This is where the other SD-WAN solution can help, the Cisco Catalyst Manager, previously called Viptela.

Their technical support is responsive.

Positive

My company helps customers with the implementation of Meraki SD-WAN.

I usually recommend multiple vendors in mind because it depends on the customer's requirements; you have Fortinet, you have Aruba, you have Huawei, and you have multiple options that may be cheaper than Cisco.

I am working with Meraki SD-WAN along with other products including Alluvio Aternity, Splunk, and AppDynamics.

Cisco's Meraki SD-WAN has their own cloud, and there's no Meraki on-prem.

I rate Meraki SD-WAN a six out of ten.

The main USP is visibility and manageability of the solution. With the lean IT team, we can manage the entire show.

I can discuss several features such as app orchestration for the access points and switch management. The architecture allows us to see whether the physical cable is connected or disconnected. This kind of granular view is available on Meraki SD-WAN.

On the security features, when compared to Fortinet, they have more patterns and AI-generated ones. Meraki SD-WAN is slowly implementing AI, but it is not yet full-fledged. If AI comes into the picture, it will be helpful. I work with Fortinet where with a single command you can deploy the entire SD-WAN along with FortiGuard within minutes. For AI, it can discover and connect, but currently, we are doing it manually.

In Meraki SD-WAN, some features require additional licenses and subscriptions. If these were bundled together, such as 10 or 20 licenses, it would be very helpful for a mini branch or small campus area coverage.

I have been working with the solutions for the last three years.

On the cloud end, it needs more development. Sometimes it is not working in Azure or GCP as it has interoperability only with some clouds, so that part needs work.

Scalability issues exist.

We have had some issues with the MAC binding. We raised it in TAC, and they were very approachable and supportive. I would rate them nine out of ten.

Positive

My role involves addressing the customer, understanding their requirements, providing a solution and network architecture, then closing the deal. I hand over to my project team for deployment and step in only if they are stuck with my solution.

Return on investment has been achieved.

When compared for the long run, it is reasonable, but for the short term, such as one year, it is costlier, especially compared to other OEMs such as FortiGate. If the license expires in FortiGate, the basic functionality will work, but in Meraki SD-WAN, the entire system will shut down.

It is totally about the customer use cases. We cannot suggest blindly to choose Meraki SD-WAN, Cisco or HP. If the customer use case satisfies a feature, we can implement it; otherwise, we need to customize or work with a different OEM. The overall rating for Meraki SD-WAN is 8 out of 10.

The main use case for Meraki SD-WAN involves working on the basic setup, which consists of Layer 2 switches. It is a very stable solution without the errors or bugs that occur with the Catalyst ones.

Additionally, it has a GUI interface that simplifies troubleshooting and switch issues, making it easier for someone who doesn't have a strong command of CLI to troubleshoot. The GUI facilitates most operations, except for those issues that require vendor support for troubleshooting.

The SD-WAN features of Meraki SD-WAN include the overlay setup that can connect between the switch and the Viptela device or between the VCE of another vendor without needing to be vendor-specific. Users can connect the switch to a VCE from another edge, whether it's Viptela, VMware, or Versa; it will work normally and build the overlay as expected.

The real-time visibility and analytics capabilities of Meraki SD-WAN are very good for troubleshooting ports, especially when viewing traffic running on these ports in real time. The Meraki dashboard is quite effective.

I am using Meraki Dashboard for centralized management with Meraki solutions. The Meraki Dashboard is helpful with Meraki SD-WAN and provides good functionality.

The main point for improvement for Meraki SD-WAN is that they could provide more troubleshooting tabs on the GUI. For instance, when performing a TCP dump or packet capture on some ports on uplinks, this should be available on the GUI.

It would simplify troubleshooting and allow for deeper investigations when accessibility is granted for these two types of troubleshooting tools, which are already permitted on other vendors such as VeloCloud, which was part of VMware and now belongs to Broadcom.

VeloCloud provides much more detail and many more tabs for troubleshooting everything, such as ARP, IPv4, IPv6, TCP dumps, routing, and switching. Users do not need to access the device CLI to dive deep into troubleshooting, as everything is accessible through the GUI in VMware. Cisco should enhance the GUI interface to provide more details for users to troubleshoot.

I have been working with Meraki SD-WAN for around five years.

I would rate the stability of Meraki SD-WAN as a nine.

The scalability for Meraki SD-WAN depends on the number of switches with low port numbers, which do not offer the same scalability as the 48-port models. The switches that have 20 gigs and 10 gigs are different than those with one gig. Scalability depends on the model number of each switch, but generally, it is scalable according to need.

I would rate technical support from Cisco as a nine.

Positive

I am not still using Infoblox as we stopped working with it.

The initial setup for Meraki SD-WAN is very easy; it's just plug and play.

The main competitor in the market for Meraki SD-WAN is VeloCloud, which is one of the leading SD-WAN solutions along with Ciena, which uses Flexware. It's a good solution, but Cisco, Versa, and VeloCloud, in particular Cisco Viptela, are the best options on the market.

I am currently working with Cisco and Ciena products, specifically Cisco switches and routers and wireless LAN controllers. Working for Cisco, we are working with Catalyst 90, 9300s and 9800s, 95, 9500s. For Ciena, I am working with Ciena switches and also with Broadcom SD-WAN, VeloCloud SD-WAN.

I am using Meraki SD-WAN, but I am not dealing with ACI or FabricPath; however, I do use Meraki and Viptela.

I have used policy-based routing features on other devices from different vendors, but I have not used it on Meraki SD-WAN.

Cisco provides their SASE solutions for security and Umbrella, along with other services, usually associated with their products or available for additional purchase. It integrates very well with Meraki SD-WAN or even with Catalyst switches. The SD-WAN solutions on Catalyst switches that use IOS XE or SD-WAN software can integrate with security features effectively, as Cisco has a complete structure for service and security.

I do not remember the prices for Cisco products as I have not reviewed a bill of material for the last two years.

On a scale of 1-10, I rate Meraki SD-WAN an 8.

My role involves tailoring networking solutions, such as Meraki SD-WAN, according to customer requirements. The primary use case is managing enterprise network traffic, focusing on providing managed services to enterprise and mid-market customers by integrating solutions from various vendors.

I have used Meraki SD-WAN primarily for managing enterprise WLAN network traffic. The integration of security features is important, although there is room for improvement. The user interface that Meraki has, especially its integration into cloud management of traffic, is simplified. It allows you to manage your entire network from a single pane of glass, which adds significant value.

The security integration in Meraki SD-WAN is not as good as the competition, such as Fortinet. Customers are moving away due to this reason, as Meraki lacks in offering advanced security features, which is crucial for many enterprise clients. Cisco's AI capabilities and Meraki are about seventy percent caught up with competitors like Juniper Mist in terms of AI integration.

I have been working with Meraki SD-WAN for the last five years.

Meraki SD-WAN is stable, and the solutions are more robust now than they were two years ago.

Meraki SD-WAN is scalable, and there have been improvements in handling enterprise traffic and network management.

I have not had to interact with customer service directly due to account managers supporting us. From a support perspective, Cisco support is rated nine out of ten.

Positive

I worked with various vendors such as Cisco, Juniper, and Aruba, focusing on different networking components before integrating Meraki SD-WAN.

The initial setup with Meraki SD-WAN has become straightforward over time, with the ability to deploy in a few hours under normal circumstances.

Implementation is done through support from account managers as we are enterprise customers going through Telco channels.

In terms of cost, it is confidential. However, from an end customer's perspective, Fortinet SD-WAN can be considered cheaper compared to Meraki SD-WAN due to security features.

Apart from Cisco, Meraki, Juniper, and Aruba, there is also interest in Fortinet SD-WAN due to its advanced security features.

I rate Meraki SD-WAN seven out of ten. Two years ago, I would have rated it five out of ten. Cisco is attempting to catch up with competitors by enhancing AI capabilities.

The solution was used in the city. We built a network for city areas to link some of the companies. There are networks in some cities or nearby cities.

We design and build the campus and WAN network for our customer. With Meraki's centralized dashboard, we've streamlined configuration and monitoring across all sites in day 0 and day 1, reducing administrative overhead and minimizing potential human errors. With its centralized dashboard, we can oversee multiple sites and make rapid adjustments during the early deployment window. Meraki reduced our customer's maintenance costs, allowing their IT team to focus on more strategic initiatives.

Most of the valuable features are at layer two and layer three. Included in this is the benefit of the local team, which we can call on for remote assistance. They can remotely visit our site and help with network configuration. This makes things easier compared to requiring on-site assistance for day one configuration and deployment. The remote help is a significant benefit.

They have to ask us many questions about configurations. It could be improved with some automation to trigger, for example, telemetry data, so we can determine the state of the deployment as of day zero and day one.

We have used the solution for only one year.

I was satisfied with the support. If rated from one to ten, I would give them an eight.

Positive

I was using Huawei products and ZTE products. I have never used a device from HPE, Juniper, Nokia, or other overseas companies. I primarily used local vendors.

The initial setup will not be too complicated. We are going to create small network areas.

Normally, we have three or four people on the team. It depends on the location. For example, if there are several locations, like two or three, two or three of us will deploy them, configure them, and bring them online.

Some customers have a maintenance team familiar with Cisco devices and configurations. This is why they allow us to create a solution or build a network based on Cisco requirements, products, and solutions.

The price is a little bit higher than local vendors, for example, Huawei ZTE or H3C. However, some customers require the best quality and performance, thus needing solutions and products from Cisco.

I would recommend them. However, in China, government regulations often require government-related companies or administration to use local vendors for building network and security-related infrastructures. In these cases, we do not use Meraki, Juniper, Nokia, or other similar devices. Cisco Meraki, that I have used, is a good product.

I would give the product an overall rating of eight or eight point five out of ten. The performance is good, and they have continuous innovations. We are one of the resellers, and we provide network solutions. If customers require us to use Meraki, they opt for Meraki devices or have their maintenance team.

We have ten Meraki devices. Our data center, main office, and other offices are all in North Carolina, and I am in Florida. 

Additionally, we have six Meraki devices in our data center. They are doing everything we need them to do. I would normally use it along with Meraki MX as well. 

I usually pass it to the senior guy since I am pretty much swamped all day from seven in the morning until midnight.

The valuable features include dual mobile and VPNs and aspects like that. Meraki Solutions setups make it one of the best products I have ever worked with.

I have probably used it for a year and a half to two years.

For the most part, the stability is good. I do not ever see issues since I manage Meraki. The only problem occurs when users are not paying attention and turn on the wrong switches, like power switches, in places they should not.

I think it is one of the best products I have ever worked with.

Whenever we need assistance, it is instant help. If something needs to be replaced or if Meraki crashes, it is instantly replaced. It is never a pain to get them to do anything support-wise.

Neutral

We switched due to the fact that the guy who installed all the Meraki devices basically convinced the company to switch to Meraki. I have worked with other solutions, yet not as much as Meraki. They all pretty much do the same thing, however, Meraki seems more reliable if set up properly.

I did not set it up, so I just manage it at this point. It was not hard to set up. The guy who set it up, whom I still work with, knows Meraki like the back of his hand.

We had someone doing it by himself. He has been in the company for eight years, setting everything up. He set up pretty much everything himself.

I would recommend the solution. It is not difficult to install or set up. In a previous company, I helped them set up since they never set it up properly for a couple of years. I figured things out faster, however, people do not realize that I read a lot too. I have read all the setups. I am supposed to be a senior network support engineer, but sixty percent of the time, I am training guys from MSPs on how to resolve simple tickets. I am sort of in between a senior network engineer and service desk manager. 

The overall product rating is ten out of ten.

I use Meraki SD-WAN in various corporate environments. It's implemented in both small offices, accommodating about twenty people, and larger offices with four hundred to five hundred people. Primarily, it's used to connect corporate networks to the Internet and occasionally between locations.

The most valuable features include understanding the throughput of bandwidth, traffic shaping, alerts and outages, and the integrated VPN. These elements are crucial for managing the network effectively. Additionally, the remote management is essential for our model, allowing us to handle multiple locations easily.

From a dashboard perspective, identifying issues can be challenging if one or two individuals experience trouble. Another area for improvement is in wireless management, where external tools might be needed to troubleshoot noise and environmental factors causing network issues.

I started using Meraki SD-WAN about ten years ago.

The solution is stable, and there are no major issues reported with its performance in our network environments.

The solution scales well, catering to both small and large office environments without requiring major changes to deployment.

Customer service and support are strong. Meraki provides good assistance which makes them reliable partners, thus earning a strong nine or eight rating from me.

Positive

In the past, I've used solutions like Fortinet and Palo Alto Networks. However, I find Meraki more suited to our internal enterprise environment.

The initial setup is easy, as you just set it up with PoE and connect it, which takes about half an hour at most.

The setup does not require a large team; it's mostly a one-time job that requires minimal staffing since everything is managed remotely.

It's hard to provide a percentage, but the solution effectively reduces costs due to its capabilities, allowing network management from anywhere in the world.

Even though it is more expensive than other options, it's reasonable when factoring in the remote management capabilities which eliminate the need for additional staffing.

I have used Fortinet and Palo Alto Networks in the past, but found Meraki better for internal environments.

I'd rate Meraki SD-WAN between eight and nine for its performance within controlled environments. If you're working in a closed ecosphere, it's an excellent choice. For more open scenarios, Fortinet or Palo Alto might offer more flexibility.

We are using it for branch to branch connectivity. We have set up servers and devices all over the DCC to provide local Wi-Fi for all branches to access the server.

It is secure. To connect the other branches to us, that's all it needed.

It's very good, especially for vendors from other countries to reconnect with us. We can control and monitor everything.

Sometimes we face issues with VPN connections when someone connects from a different time zone, like from Georgia to the Middle East. These kinds of issues occur, but other than that, nothing major.

I have been working with the Meraki SD-WAN for almost ten years.

We did not face much downtime. Our business operations have been stable.

I am not aware of any limitations in terms of scalability.

Sometimes technical support response is delayed. I would rate it seven out of ten.

Positive

I have not used any other SD-WAN solutions before.

The initial setup was delayed due to shipment issues with the hardware. However, once everything arrived, we could complete it in about one to one and a half months.

We have an in-house team and support from a third-party local vendor. We have contracts with them for periodic testing. We have six people involved in maintenance — three for hardware and three for other areas.

We have seen a return on investment.

There are many cheap solutions available. Local vendors offer their own products, so compared to those, Meraki seems a bit expensive.

It depends on a business's needs. For businesses that need it, Meraki SD-WAN is good, however, there are other cheaper cloud solutions available like SaaS or AWS.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.

Primarily, we focus on small businesses, offering solutions that are not overly large deployment but impactful. For instance, we helped a company with an employee in four locations to implement Meraki SD-WAN after other solutions failed. It worked perfectly. 

We also support a retailer with six locations using SD-WAN, among other small to medium-sized deployments, including teleworker solutions.

Meraki SD-WAN simplified branch network management for the organization.

It's practically a set-and-forget solution. It just works. Once it's configured and designed properly, we just press the button and it just works seamlessly, eliminating the need for continuous adjustments or monitoring. It is extremely simple to use.  

It's greatly simplified our operations. While not the most flexible, it suits the needs of about 90% of our clients perfectly, making it a reliable and straightforward choice for our network solutions.

It has improved the site-to-site connectivity. For instance, there's this hardware store company. They had tried different solutions since they couldn't afford the big names like FibTeller and Olathe. They were looking for cost-effective solutions. 

They had Google WAN at every site and experimented with MicroTik gear, which is very affordable and flexible but didn't suit their needs. We conducted a quick proof of concept between a few sites with Meraki, and it worked flawlessly right from the start. They replaced all the other equipment with Meraki and haven't looked back, continually expanding with more Meraki solutions.

Moreover, its cloud management platform made a difference in managing the network. 

It's made managing our client's networks extremely easy, regardless of my location. Being able to hop on my cell phone to see what's happening on a client's network makes everything much more manageable.

The first feature I like is the SD-WAN. Second is Advanced Malware Protection (AMP), the threat protection. And third, would be the content filters. Those three together work extremely well. 

It's not perfect, but none of the solutions are because the pricing keeps going all over the place. But with the change they did a couple of years back to Talos, using the real Cisco threat protection system and intelligence, that's really worked quite well. And it does work very nicely maybe not for huge corporate rollouts in the thousands. But certainly, in the small media business, it works quite well. 

If you can scan the pricing and the fact that if you don't have a license, they just stop working, which is a kind of a big hurdle you have to get people to understand that you're just basically buying a subscription in that bit. You're not buying hardware; you're buying a subscription.

Moreover, the Auto VPN feature benefited the organization. We've had virtually zero support calls regarding the Auto VPN feature; it just works seamlessly and automatically. 

The only time it requires attention is during the initial setup or when applying special rules, but other than that, it operates automatically without issues.

It is effective and easy to set up, although a bit expensive, but it gets the job done with a simple configuration. 

However, Meraki isn't as flexible for more unique needs but works excellently within its defined scope.

I'd like to see improvements in the client VPN area. Currently, we use L2TP over IPSec, which, while widely supported, can be buggy on Windows due to Microsoft's implementation, not Meraki's. 

Cisco's AnyConnect is an alternative, but it's proprietary. An open-source option like WireGuard or TailScale, especially WireGuard for compliance reasons, would be a valuable addition to Meraki's offerings. 

WireGuard would be a perfect fit due to its simplicity and set-and-forget configuration

I have been using it for five years now. 

It's very stable. I would rate the stability a nine out of ten simply because there have been a couple of outages. And the outages, when they occur, are in the cloud platform, the Meraki platform, as it's all web-based, internet-based, where there have been some issues with client authentication for the VPN because it's RADIUS-based and it's in the cloud. 

So if the cloud is down, those users can't log in to the VPN, and that's created some issues in the past. In other words, about two years ago, we had a couple of outages, and I had some angry calls.

But apart from that, it's been pretty stable.

It's quite scalable. I read a lot on Reddit, YouTube, and all kinds of stuff, but in trade papers, Meraki apparently scales up very well within the confines of what Meraki can do. 

Now there are companies, like mining companies, who think scaling out, that's when they scale out, they have to do some weird stuff. And that's just what Meraki is just not capable of doing. 

But, for example, schools where they have, or universities typically order for small businesses. They don't generally have very strict, very strange configurations that they need to have working. So, the scalability depends on the client, for example, retail. We can go into one company that has 50 retail stores in all different malls and stuff like that, that scales very well. 

You can have one Meraki with one MX in the central site that has everybody auto-VPN into it. And that works fine. No issues there. So, it does scale within the confines of what Meraki could do.

In our clients, we have anywhere from five users all the way up to a thousand users or more (a school) connected at any one time. So, that's kind of the range with schools and hotels. We also have hotels that do that kind of range.

Sometimes, we encounter someone new who might need a bit of explanation on how Meraki works. Usually, if I'm contacting support, it's for something quite unusual because I handle about 90% of the issues myself. The other 10% might be dashboard-related rather than hardware issues.

Positive

We didn't use any other solution, we sort of fell into Meraki. Initially, we were a Wi-Fi-focused shop, starting with Ruckus. As we expanded, we found Cambium Networks offered great value, becoming our go-to for Wi-Fi solutions. 

We mix Cambium Wi-Fi with Meraki firewalls, which has become a highly successful product for us. Cambium doesn't require licensing, which contrasts with Meraki Wi-Fi, where WE're essentially buying a subscription, not just the hardware. 

It is our best selling product. 

On a scale of one to ten, with ten being very easy to setup, I would rate my experience a ten —super easy. However, it's crucial to understand the quirks of Meraki. 

Someone new to Meraki might find it confusing because its simplicity can be misleading. They might expect complexity and get lost. But once you're familiar with Meraki's approach, setup becomes incredibly straightforward.

Our clients mainly use on-premises deployments. While some applications might be cloud-based, significant data centers are locally situated in Chile. Given our geographical location and the absence of native cloud services, except for a recent introduction by Google, reliance on local data centers is more practical. 

Latency becomes an issue when using major cloud services due to the distance from global cloud data centers. So, for our small to medium-sized business clientele in Chile, which differs in scale from what's considered small to medium in the U.S., local data center usage is the norm, and we rarely see hybrid setups.

I deployed the solution. Deployment for a small client takes half a day. 

One technical person is enough for the deployment. 

I handle the maintenance as well. I get the calls when they get decent support, and our philosophy is when people complain, we teach the client. So the client doesn't have to rely on us for support.

Because we are a very small operation, and so, we had support, we have hundreds of clients who can't support them all. So what we do is we train the clients. 

We generally have a training after the install of however it worked and really train them well on the things that they will have to be doing if they are gonna be managing their own. 

But our philosophy is if the client manages their own system, and with Meraki, you have direct support from the company.  

For a pure SD-WAN solution, the pricing is competitive. However, our clients are on the lower tier in terms of budget, viewing IT more as a necessary expense rather than integral to their business. While Meraki's solution might be pricey for them, there aren't many cheaper, reliable options. 

Other solutions claiming to offer SD-WAN don't match Meraki's sophistication and end up costing about the same, making Meraki's pricing reasonable for the service quality, though still a stretch for our client base.

For our clients, I'd rate it around a seven out of ten in terms of pricing. It's not too expensive compared to high-end SD-WAN solutions like Vitello, but it's still a bit pricey for our client base who are accustomed to more budget-friendly options like TP-Link or inexpensive firewalls.

About five years ago, there weren't many affordable options available that suited our client base. They just weren't a good fit for our client base. Our client base is very small. They weren't going to pay thousands of dollars a year to connect their offices. They just wouldn't do it. So they got by with basic firewalls and just doing a straight tunnel, a VPN tunnel, with SD-WAN, we tunnel it and be done with it" mentality. 

But then, all of a sudden, we started looking at Meraki. We played around with it a little bit, and we were just amazed at how easy it was to set up a VPN and the SD-WAN portion. It was fairly simple. We couldn't believe it because we were used to the world of command-line interface (CLI).

You log in, and then you start typing commands. We have been doing a lot with Cisco ASA firewalls, and those are the biggest pains in the neck. With VPNs and all that stuff, it was horrible.

We're Cisco partners, as well as Fortinet, Aruba, and Ruckus partners. We work with a wide range of partners, making us quite versatile in the industry.

Overall, I would rate the solution a nine out of ten for our use case. For a bank's use case, they might rate it a two, but for small businesses and schools, it's about an eight out of ten. 

Our company is an integration partner with Cisco and we use the solution to provide internet or wireless connectivity for customers. 

One of our clients is a grocery chain with 200 locations in Mexico. They might be called  liquor stores in the USA but in Mexico, these stores are bigger and also provide fast service for groceries such as fruits and vegetables. The stores are located in remote places where internet is not the best option. 

The stores had residential internet with modem or router, no MPLS, and no capacity for more than 10 to 20 simultaneous connections. Wireless internet, cell phones, or POS did not function well but were critical to business. 

The solution provides a great benefit because MLPS is not needed to receive  great connections. MX65s were installed in the stores and the MX105 was installed at the company's headquarters. 

The solution brings a redundancy of cellular internet with management access for security policies and the network at each store via Meraki's software. The customer is able to manage and configure routers remotely. Connectivity is improved for customers, the POS, CCTV, and the bar code reader. 

The remote management system allows customers to create VPN services whenever they need them. 

The management system is one of the best available. 

The licensing price is a bit expensive in comparison to other products that have more capabilities. 

The interface in the VPN management system can be a bit complex for users to understand. The usability could be improved so that users can access things more quickly. 

I have been using the solution for four years. 

The solution is very stable.

The solution is scalable to the licenses. 

Our company provides customers with three levels of technical support. We have our own support teams who are Cisco-certified in engineering, architecture, the cloud, and security. There are not many partners in Mexico with our levels of certification. Our support is trained to solve problems. 

If we cannot solve a problem, then we raise a ticket with the distributor or wholesaler where we purchased the solution. Sometimes this level takes a little longer because some of their staff does not have the knowledge or certifications that we do. There may be one specialty but not all specialties. We sometimes face trouble with this step so would rather work directly with Cisco but have to follow this step first. 

If a problem goes farther to something related to software or frameware, then we bring in Cisco's technical support and ask them to take ownership of the ticket. They are the manufacture so they can solve anything. 

Cisco's technical support is average. It is not the best or not one of the worst like Ubiquiti.

Technical support is rated a six out of ten. 

Neutral

The setup is very easy. The solution is the best for setup in comparison to Aruba and Fortinet. This saves customers a lot of money on installations and deployments. 

I rate setup a ten out of ten. 

Two of our in-house specialists handle implementations for customers. 

The use case dictates the amount of time needed for implementations. The worst cases are when we have to homologate with FortiGate or Barracuda. 

For our grocery customer, we implemented between 1,000 to 2,000 devices across 200 locations within two weeks. Some of that time was spent on technology training because we like to educate our customers on use. 

The ROI for customers is that they save money on field technical support and field configurations. Service-level agreements do not depend on the functionality of the hardware. You reduce the risk of data loss, security, and incident response because issues can be solved quickly with the software. 

It isn't necessary to conduct a huge analysis because the ROI is clear. You can point out how much customers spend on infrastructure, MPLS, management, internet service, and field support.

If customers cannot use the cloud due to compliance, you can still bring good value and options with the solution. 

There is no downtime because notifications automatically alert to issues and can be resolved immediately. You can set notifications for any downfall or device issue. Traditional, field support might take five hours but with the solution you can provide remote support within 30 minutes. You can also configure and visualize the security policies for each device. You have acknowledgement that the network is secure and the policies are clear. All the points of risk management across controls, reactive, and remedial make the ROI very clear. 

The solution is a bit expensive when compared to other products that bring more capacity such as Teltonika. 

The MX65 is $100 to $150 per license, per month. 

The MX80 or MX105 is $200 to $200 per license, per month. 

In contrast, Teltonika charges $2 per license, per month and that is a huge difference. 

The solution offers very stable cloud security and the service is better than other products. The solution is definitely the best option for quality and software when compared to Fortinet, Aruba, and other SD-WAN products. 

Fortinet has made recent improvements to their SD-WAN products. 

Teltonika are big competitors and they offer better prices for devices and software. 

Right now, we are comparing the solution to Chinese and European products that bring better price benefits. Sometimes it comes down to a matter of pricing for customers. 

The solution's lead time for purchase could be a bit better. Right now the lead time is no more than 20 weeks but Teltonika's lead time is eight weeks. Some other products have an 80 to 100 week lead time. The solution and Fortinet are the most demanded products in Mexico so most people don't have trouble waiting for them. 

Read the solution's documentation available on the internet. You don't need to do more than that because it is very easy to use. The solution is the best VPN management tool and one of the easiest technologies to deploy and install. 

Look at documentation for the management system because the value you can bring to customers is great. You can bring good benefits so that the cost of the license is no trouble. 

For example, customers will save a lot of money in field technical support and field configurations because of the remote abilities and incident response. An issue with nodes or devices can be handled remotely and very quickly. 

Documentation and videos will allow you to explain the solution to customers in one minute. The solution is one of the easiest to sell because of its benefits that include ease of installation, use, and management. 

I rate the solution a nine out of ten.