Meraki MS Switches Reviews

I use this solution at work and in my house. The network in my house runs on Cisco Meraki. I use it to connect my home network to the internet.

At work, we use it to connect the users, their network, and their computers to the network.

It is easy to work with. 

The dashboard is awesome. It provides you with very rich information, and when it comes to troubleshooting, it provides you with a wealth of information on the network about what is going on.

It tells you what traffic goes out and what traffic comes in.

It's very good. It provides you with a very deep look and there is a lot of good information if you need it.

I would like to add a voice capability to Meraki, to make a call or receive a call. It can be done in the software or some type of hardware.

The switches have wireless, routers, firewalls, and SD-WAN. They have also added cameras to their product lines, as well as the sensors in their product lines.

I like to see to add some voice capability to complete the circle. That would make them complete in terms of having the ability to make a phone call. For example, if I am buying their products and I need a phone, then I would have to go buy a phone from another vendor. 

It would be nice because if I had a phone added then I would need to go to any other vendor. 

I would have one dashboard where I could see my sensors, my firewall, my switches, my wireless, and I can see the switch, I could see everything. I wouldn't need to go to the dashboard to look at my phone activity. It would all be on one dashboard and involve one vendor.

I have used Meraki MS Switches for many years.

I am using the latest version.

Meraki MS Switches is a stable product.

Meraki MS Switches are scalable.

The technical support is awesome. When you send an email, they respond quickly. They run 24/7.

It is easy to set up.

It is so simple that anyone could install it.

I don't have an issue with the price of this solution.

I am currently doing research to see what technology would be best suited for a particular issue that we are facing.

I haven't experienced any problems with this solution. 

If I had, I would have switched to another vendor, and I wouldn't use it at home.

I use it at work and at home and I don't have any issues.

I would rate Meraki MS Switches a ten out of ten.

A primary use case involves small to mid-sized offices consisting of under five hundred ports. 

While I do not have metrics to demonstrate how the product has improved the functioning of my organization, I can state that the upgrades to the portal have made it easier to manage the switches and the flexibility of the configurations. As for deployment, as you know, there are obviously multiple configuration styles. If you are going to do layer three at the edge, layer three at the core, the flexibility of the devices is very good. I cannot state to what extent improvements accrue to the investment, although I do know it is getting better.

The most valuable feature of the product is the console. The second most valuable feature is the technical support and the infrastructure behind the console.

Performance is an area in need of improvement. Other systems, such as Juniper switches, perform better for the same or less money. For consistency and ease of use, Cisco is definitely better, but performance is where things fall short. 

Price to performance value when compared with competitors is a feature that should be addressed in the next release. 

I have been working with Meraki MS Switches for four or five years. I try to use the latest models available. I have used the 250 and 450 and will have to check if I used another one. 

The product has good stability. 

The product demonstrates good scalability. 

I want to use the product so that I may plug it in and set it up in fifteen minutes. Then, when I have to troubleshoot something, it's easy. When I have a problem with the network, I call up technical support and they help. They actually help.

With other companies, when asking for something beyond the scope of technical support's outline, I would have the feeling of being deferred and not receiving the necessary help.

The initial setup was straightforward. 

I choose to rate the product a nine out of ten because of the cost. Remember, you and I are not paying for the equipment. Someone is paying for it. Someone has to be willing to pay the premium for this and they have to see the value. I am not a salesman, but if I want to go with Cisco, I need to show the client the better value of buying Cisco Meraki over Ubiquiti.

Another system I evaluated is Juniper switches. 

The general use case is just as a unified platform for APs and switches. In our particular case, we brought on a client that had firewalls, access points, and had a need for switches to all run on one platform.

Where they are in the market and the market segment with their cloud management is an impressive aspect of the solution that originally lead ut to the solution. The maturity with their cloud management is really great.

The technical support is quite good.

The initial setup is straightforward.

In terms of the switches, generally, we have some stability problems. There are general stability issues with them. It's been inconsistent for a couple of years. It's not really based on any firmware. 

Switches that are in production and running will stop responding. And so we have to reboot the switches.

We've been using the solution for six years at this point.

The stability of the solution isn't ideal. We've had a lot of problems with the switches. They are unstable and unreliable. We need to reboot them often.

I haven't seen any issues with scalability. Our environment is relatively small, about 20-25 offices, and therefore we haven't tried to expand the solution.

The support of the solution has always been very good. They're very knowledgable and responsive. We're satisfied with their level of attention.

The initial setup is not complex. It's straightforward.

We are a Cisco partner. Our previous solutions were all Cisco-based, however, we were just using the traditional Cisco 2900 Series Switches. We still have a lot of those in production.

As far as switches go, it's a good product. As long as it makes a good fit for the customer, the only advice is to not let the maturity of the product dictate the need to implement.

There are a lot of solutions out there now that are a little bit cheaper, and that might meet a company's desired price point. Many other products also provide the same level of functionality. Don't just buy it because of the name.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten overall.

These switches are best used in mid-size businesses for access and collapsed distribution/core switching. They offer both layer 2 and layer 3 models and have a well-rounded switch feature set for a switch line. Overall, we have found them to meet just about every need we want in a switch. We have them as 10-GB solutions for high-speed SAN connectivity all the way down to 8-port solutions in some high-end homes. They offer ACLs, LACP, port security, access policies, and DHCP security, to name a few options. The methods that Meraki has chosen to implement some of these features via the cloud is amazingly simple to manage compared to locally managed solutions.

For MSPs, a cloud-managed solution is so much more efficient than a locally managed solution, and having a single pane of glass with Meraki's dashboard is an easy-to-use solution. It is simple to switch between managing wireless, security appliances, and switches on the dashboard if all three Meraki solutions are implemented. This simplifies the management process and allows the granular control of the devices or in some cases global control of all ports. Change management is built-in (who did what) and sorely missing in locally managed solutions. Additionally, you can manage switch ports across multiple devices all at the same time. Adding a new VLAN to all trunk ports in the organization is simple with tags selecting all trunk ports and adding the new VLAN by number.

Setting up a switch can be performed prior to having your hands on the device. Once you purchase a Meraki switch you will get an email from Meraki with a code to add to your dashboard and then you can start setting up your switch so when it arrives it will download its configuration and be all set up. It is practically a zero-touch deployment. Firmware upgrades on devices are pushed from the cloud and typically only bring the device down for a minute or two while applied. The built-in packet capture on them allows easier troubleshooting even when you are not onsite. They even allow you to create staged upgrade plans so you can schedule which switches upgrade in order to minimize downtime.

Meraki MS switches are great for pretty much all SMB networks and most enterprise networks. However, there are some higher-end functions that larger enterprise networks with full access, distribution, and core switch stack may find limiting.

One of the most challenging things to get used to is the delay in the time it takes for changes to be implemented. With a locally managed switch, you make a change and it is pretty much immediate. With the nature of cloud management, you make a change and it may take one to three minutes before that change makes its way to the device and takes effect. It's not a problem once you get used to it but when we first started working with Meraki, I found myself making a change and immediately assuming it didn't work so I would change it again. A little patience is your friend when making changes. They have a field on the dashboard that lets you know when the config is up to date so that makes it easy to know when you can start testing your change(s). I'm not sure if this delay could be reduced or not by prioritizing communication but it is by no means a show-stopper. They warn you when you are about to make changes to the uplink path of a device so you can double-check to make certain your change will not break the Internet access for the device.

I have been using Meraki MS Switches for seven years.

MS switches have proven very reliable.

The solution is not as scalable as Cisco Nexus but not as expensive either. I think Meraki has hit the sweet spot on scaling.

Technical support is about an eight on a scale of ten. Meraki techs have additional capabilities beyond what the dashboard admin has so they can make some adjustments that you can't. Which is probably a good thing overall but can be frustrating. They use packet tracing rather effectively to troubleshoot which is available to the end user also.

Cisco switches were used previously. The main reason I switched was the cloud management. Ironically, after I switched, Cisco purchased Meraki. I was concerned Cisco would mismanage Meraki when that happened but they seem to have stayed out of the Meraki business model for the most part. Cisco and Meraki are starting to share some backend functions (Umbrella for example). Cisco is starting to offer Cisco switches that can be managed using the Meraki dashboard or local management. 

The dashboard is easy to setup and manage.

We implemented the solution in-house.

We have seen a two to three year ROI.

The licensing model is hard for some to wrap their heads around and I understand their concerns. Meraki, like numerous other vendors, is too expensive for a lot of small businesses. However, if uptime is critical to your organization, the cloud management, great stability, and performance of the MS line is a powerful combination. 

There are other cheaper solutions out there and some of them are quite good. I really like Meraki overall. Their license requirement means you always have support and next day replacement on all your Meraki equipment. Be careful if purchasing Meraki hardware secondhand. The warranty only applies to the original owner. So you should have a warranty from the secondhand provider if that is important to you.

They co-terminate the licenses so each license you purchase has a prorated impact on the co-termination date. You can choose to not use the co-termination date if you wish. The nice feature about the co-termination date is you don't have to micromanage each device's license. This is across all Meraki devices (security appliances, switches, APs, etc.). 

Purchase your switch with a one, three, five, seven, or ten-year license depending on your planned use and you might never need to think about a license again as you will be likely replacing the device with something newer at the end of that period. Purchasing the longer license protects from future price increases and also saves money versus adding on to the term later. Meraki is an ecosystem that works best if you are "all in" across your device lineup.

I find that Meraki licensing is a polarizing solution as you are either happy with it or have an allergic reaction to it.

NETGEAR, Ubiquiti, Aruba, Cisco Catalyst were all previously evaluated.

Meraki offers some free equipment if you participate in their webinars. You can get a free security appliance, switch, and AP after watching three webinars and trying them out for yourself. The free equipment comes with a three-year license. Obviously, it will be their lowest-end equipment, but it still gives you the Meraki dashboard experience.

We are using Meraki MS Switches for a company responsible for elections, in our country. We've set up the network for all the servers to work in the same network and they have different sites. We have set up some VPNs between those sites.

The most valuable features of Meraki MS Switches are simple deployment and administration. You can have all your switches in one place and manage them.

Meraki MS Switches could improve if it was an SDN. It will be more flexible and WWE can use one link for specific traffic and another one for other traffic.

I have been using Meraki MS Switches for three years.

Meraki MS Switches is stable.

The scalability of Meraki MS Switches is good.

I have used HP and Ubiquiti switches. I prefer Cisco solutions.

The initial setup of Meraki MS Switches is straightforward. The full deployment took about three months. We have different sites all over the country and this is why it took a while to do the deployment.

The maintenance of the not difficult. However, when we order some cards, it's difficult to have them when we want because the hardware supply time is long.

My advice to others is for them to get prepared before starting the adventure with Meraki MS Switches because they are different and the logic behind them I different than what someone would typically use.

I rate Meraki MS Switches a nine out of ten.

We use the solution for switching only because it was already in place at an organization we took over who sold Meraki. We continue to use the Meraki solution as switches on that network.

Personally, I don't like the product because I don't like the idea of losing all functionality if your license for the cloud is not current and paid or if the cloud cannot be accessed. I wouldn't recommend these switches for most organizations because the cloud-based deployment is restrictive and comes with problems. The only reason I can see choosing this product is if your organization is totally non-IT, on-premises and you are comfortable leaving IT services in the hands of somebody else.

Realistically, the pricing should be improved to match the services and features provided. This also should be enhanced so that you are able to use the product when there is no cloud connectivity.

Because of dependence on the cloud, my strongest advice to people considering this solution is to make sure you have a reliable internet connection.

As far as future improvements to the product, it is not a concern for us as we are not doing additional installations at this point and would probably hope, instead, to phase out the use of the product.

I have not experienced any bugs while using the product, but in trawling the internet for more information and doing some research, it seems that there can be a lot of problems with this solution. We have not experienced any of these problems ourselves.

The product is scalable and can work if you're a small to medium-sized business. I wouldn't want to use Meraki in an enterprise network. At the moment we have about six clients sites where the Meraki device is used for storage. That is a total of about 40 or so end-users. 

I have not had the reason to use customer services or technical support.

We are currently using Meraki at some sites but we are also using NETGEAR. NETGEAR is our preferred switch kit. We normally would prefer not to use Meraki at all. We were forced to use it because a customer we took over already had the Meraki switches.

The initial setup can be straightforward if you don't make it too complicated by trying to do a lot of customization. The entire setup took us about four hours.

We did not use a vendor team for the implementation, we did it ourselves.

With the solution that we currently have, I think it costs about 1,200 pounds a year. They bill on a yearly basis. There are no licensing costs in addition to the standard yearly licensing fees, but of course, you have to buy the kit. It is the nature of this type of product to require that type of initial capital expenditure.

It is very important that people considering this solution have or can implement a very reliable internet connection. The product needs this to access the cloud.

On a scale from one to ten where one is the worst and ten is the best, I would rate this product as a six. It is just too limited to be rated any higher.

I use it primarily when migrating from old or legacy to Meraki MS Switches supporting Meraki services and supporting the SD-WAN. But I am using them with the SD-WAN provided by FlexWare. I am also using it for connecting access points because it is easier than using the Catalyst with a command line.  Meraki MS Switches has its own user interface on its platform. It is easier for configuring the interfaces and monitoring, getting the box and logs from Exporter. We are using it in some regions, especially in the Americas, North and Latin Americas, Asia Pacific, and some countries in the EMEA.

I like that the portal has maps inside it that detect a given location which makes searching on it easier. You can also attach photos to the portal.

The shooting portal side needs to have CLI access for deep investigations.

The most valuable feature is that it is more stable than Catalyst switches. It is easy to configure and claim the switches by their serial number directly from the portal.

In reference to an area of improvement sometimes the switch does not connect to the internet initially. One area that needs to be improved is the issue of the STP incompatible versions It occurs when there is another version of the opposite device. If you have an older version or newer version of the software, sometimes it is an issue that happens with STP incompatible versions for the uplinks. There is a lot of dependency on software compatibility. I would like to see the feature of the Catalyst Switches regarding the LLDB and CDP neighbors to be included.

I have been using Meraki MS Switches for the past three years now.

Meraki MS Switches are a stable solution.

The scalability of Meraki MS Switches depends on the compatibility of the version you are working with. In addition, it also relates to a small office or a warehouse.

We have yet to send cases to the vendor.

Positive

The initial setup is straightforward and easy. The deployment is pretty fast and takes usually about an hour to complete. We configure the ports, and LANs, you can select multiple interfaces, and configure them at the same time. This is similar to the interface range command line and the user interface, simply connect the internet and everything will work.

The solution was implemented in-house.

It depends on the cost center and the version of switches and their model no, so it varies from small places to large environments.

Meraki MS Switches are more stable and reliable than Catalyst switches. They are an easy product to configure. You need to know the network essentials and what are the IPs. A professional engineer is not required to install them. I would rate them an eight out of ten.

The solution is user-friendly and offers good visibility of users, service visibility and program management. It is easy to handle the configurations.

The setup is simple. 

We have found the product to be stable. 

It is scalable. 

The product is reasonably priced. 

The existing setup is okay right now.

The troubleshooting could be better. Sometimes we get the wrong information.

Technical support could be better. 

It's not perfectly priced. It could always be a bit lower. 

I've used the solution for two or three years. 

It's a stable solution. The product is reliable. We have not faced any problems so far. There are no bugs or glitches, and it doesn't crash or freeze. 

The solution is scalable. 

We currently have hundreds of switches. 

At this point in time, we do not have plans to increase usage. 

Technical support is not the best. We can't say they are very good. 

Neutral

It's an easy initial setup. It's straightforward. It's not complex or difficult. 

We only need one person to handle the initial setup. 

The price is quite good. I'd rate it four out of five. It's affordable. 

We did look into other solutions.

We have a partnership with Meraki.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.