Meraki SD-WAN Reviews

Our primary use is providing services to clients. I work as a regional team lead for network operations. Part of the responsibilities include looking out for evolving technologies and leverage cost benefits while improving services. Because I overlook 1,600 sites within the organizations spread across 52 countries, we can use that buying power to influence pricing.  

When we started using Meraki in 2016, we were just experimenting. By virtue of the results that we got based on using Meraki — the flexibility coupled with the simplicity at the same time realizing that we would experience significant cost optimization — that made Meraki our option A. In our initial estimation, we were able to reduce about 30% of our recurring costs on one site. Since we decided to go with it, we just rolled out 230 sites to the platform and we have many more sites that are coming on to the platform over the next year.  

In fact, next year we are targeting about 1,000 sites to be on the platform. We started with just three sites as a test in 2016 and today that has grown to 230. It keeps growing because more countries have heard about the cost optimization and they are indicating their interest having heard the result. For instance, Switzerland has been the latest country we converted. We have 65 sites in Switzerland. We started the project in June and we have been able to move 59 of the 65 sites to Meraki as of today. At the end of this month, the entire migration for the whole of Switzerland will be complete. That is 65 sites in just 4 months.  

Our journey in moving to Meraki is in progress but we expect to experience a huge benefit in the bottom line of operational costs.  

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. 

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.

We are using this solution for productivity, in terms of the users, and simplicity in terms of ease of management, although the capabilities of the platforms are a little restricted. As is the resilience, just because of the hub and spoke nature at significant volume. I use the solution a lot in retail stores.

The solution is deployed on-prem and on the cloud. We are using the latest version.

The solution is pretty reliable.

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.

Meraki SD-WAN is software-defined and handles key elements like bandwidth, layer seven applications, and VPN connections via automation. For instance, you can set up and configure auto-mesh connections between sites with minimal effort. The same goes for VLAN configuration; you define it, and the system automates the necessary access lists and rules behind the scenes.

In traditional setups, you'd manually create access control lists and prioritize traffic. With Meraki, it's automated. For example, you can set a rule giving voice packets priority, and Meraki's SD-WAN takes care of it instantly. Voice traffic can be prioritized by directly setting it as a feature or associating it with a specific VLAN. The result is that voice packets have priority while other data traffic utilizes the remaining bandwidth. This dynamic traffic handling is built-in, so you don’t need to write manual rules like you would with other systems.

Dynamic bandwidth allocation ensures that voice traffic always gets priority, while the Auto VPN feature simplifies network setup. The VPN configuration happens automatically, and the system fails to ensure continuous connectivity if you have a redundant connection. Everything is managed, meaning bandwidth and connections are adjusted.

I use the tool for some purposes related to technical checks.

Meraki as SD-WAN has improved our organization's work since it is a resilient tool and serves as a cloud-based product.

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.