Meraki SD-WAN Reviews

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. 

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.

I use Meraki SD-WAN for multi-site VPN connectivity. It is mainly used for creating a mesh kind of site-to-site connection across different industries.

It offers ease of setup and ongoing maintenance without needing to have a public or static IP on all the sites.

The most valuable feature is the ease of setting up Meraki SD-WAN. It simplifies the process and does not require having a public or static IP on all the sites.

Meraki SD-WAN could be improved by including full feature routing functions similar to a normal Cisco router. It would also benefit from self-healing capabilities, where it can automatically reboot or reset if the VPN stops working.

I have been using Meraki SD-WAN for many years, more than ten years.

Meraki SD-WAN is quite stable, and there have been no significant complaints regarding its stability.

I rate its scalability as eight out of ten.

Customer service is quite good, and there are no complaints about the support.

Positive

The initial setup is very easy, and I would rate it ten out of ten for ease.

We have not conducted a cost-benefit analysis; it is more about ease of setup and maintenance.

The cost depends on the size and the device. It is generally expensive, and the price varies.

I recommend Meraki SD-WAN if the budget allows it. It is important to try it out and see if it suits your needs before making a decision.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.

The tool makes it easier for us to communicate with other offices without using an MPLS network.

The solution is easy to use. The product enables us to connect with other offices easily. It provides alerts to notify us if a site is down or up. I haven’t faced any challenges while integrating Meraki into existing infrastructures.

The solution must provide more security features.

I haven’t had any issues with the tool’s stability. That is why we use it.

The tool is scalable. We deal with medium-sized businesses with around 100 users.

The support is pretty good. The support team is pretty knowledgeable.

Positive

The initial setup is straightforward. I rate the ease of setup a ten out of ten. The deployment can be done in an hour if everything is connected properly. We need two network technicians for the deployment. It is simple to use. It does not require any maintenance.

The product is not very expensive. I rate the pricing a five out of ten. The price is not a huge deal-breaker.

I evaluated other products, but Meraki was cheaper.

We configured the VPN feature in our organization. It works well. I will recommend the solution. It is easy to use. Overall, I rate the product a ten out of ten.

Apart from SQL, I used to work a lot with networking solutions. I am more of a network specialist, and then I started to do SQL after that. I'm experienced with networking rather than application experience for databases.

Meraki SD-WAN has improved productivity greatly. It is easy to deploy and easy to troubleshoot, so problem resolution is quicker.

The redundancy feature of Meraki SD-WAN has most significantly enhanced network performance. Additionally, the security features are good on the MX devices.

The configuration from the firewall side could be improved a little bit more.

I have about four to five years of experience working with Meraki SD-WAN.

I would rate the stability of the solution as eight out of ten. There were no significant troubles with stability.

I would rate the scalability of Meraki SD-WAN as ten out of ten. It is highly scalable.

I would rate the customer service and support eight out of ten.

Positive

We did look at other solutions such as Fortinet and VeloCloud. However, we decided to go with Meraki SD-WAN because we were already a Meraki customer and saw the ease of deployment.

The initial setup was quite straightforward.

The deployment was done through a third-party integrator.

Meraki SD-WAN has contributed to cost savings by being easy to deploy and troubleshoot, making problem resolution quicker.

The pricing of Meraki SD-WAN is a little bit on the pricey side. However, it is still a valuable product despite the cost.

We looked at Fortinet and VeloCloud. We chose Meraki SD-WAN because we were already a Meraki customer and appreciated the ease of deployment.

I would recommend Meraki SD-WAN because it is easy to deploy, highly scalable, and easy to manage.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.

Our company uses the solution for side-to-side or branch connectivity to our data center. We have 70 branches and about 3,000 end users in our environment.  

The solution operates via zero-touch configuration. We do not have to physically visit branches to configure. We just send the points to our locations for seamless, push configuration from the cloud. 

The firewall included in the antivirus protection includes many features such as IPS and traffic shipping rules.  

The solution is quite user friendly and has predefined functions that you click to deploy. 

A run optimization feature is needed to reduce the bandwidth for any uploaded content. 

I have been using the solution for four years. 

The stability is very good so is rated an eight out of ten. 

The solution is scalable from a security perspective. 

Endpoint security can be managed by the end users or other third-party tools. We use Trend Micro for endpoint security. 

Scalability is rated a six out of ten. 

Our company is layer one and we have certified experts in-house, so we handle most technical issues.

Responses are not very clear when we escalate issues. Support is located in the UK and we have to get our account manager to connect us with the team in the UK. 

Technical support is rated a five out of ten. 

Neutral

The setup is easy once you are used to it. Our first setup took a bit of time but now we process setups very efficiently. 

The setup time depends on the site, user load density, and network gateway policies. It could date one day to go through all the steps for a more complex setup because you need to create the policies, map them, and integrate the active directory with the policies. 

We implement the solution in-house. 

The solution offers yearly licenses and product lines or prices are readily available on their website. 

We purchased the solution in 2018 and it is still supported. 

The solution does not include a run optimization feature for reducing bandwidth like what is available in other products. 

I recommend the solution but would like it to provide better optimization. If it does, then the solution would be considered an absolute star product. 

I rate the solution an eight out of ten.