Meraki SD-WAN Reviews

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.

Meraki SD-WAN offers a platform where Cisco manages your database. The platform is cloud-based and accessible through the URL. This means that Cisco has access to all of your devices, but it also means that if you need to make changes, Cisco can control it. One of the benefits of this system is that if you experience any loss of connectivity, Cisco can support you.

Meraki SD-WAN provides an open platform for users, allowing them to tailor their bandwidth usage. Additionally, it allows you to monitor customer usage and distinguish between different types of URLs they use, which can be non-production, production, confidential, or non-confidential.

From my end, I cannot submit any details on the areas of the product that need improvement because I am currently on the audit format.

In terms of additional features that could be included in the next release of the solution, it would be useful to have proxy software that can be managed from a mobile device. As engineers, sometimes we need remote access, which can be a challenge, especially during off-shifts when we can't log in to our environment. If there was a platform that allowed us to access our credentials, it would enable us to provide support to the customer while also improving vendor productivity.

I have been using Meraki SD-WAN for three years now, and in my experience, it's one of the best solutions.

Stability-wise, I rate this solution an eight and a half out of ten. I would like improved stability in Meraki SD-WAN. Also, it is a very user-friendly solution. So, whenever you want to implement a new site, you can get options that are user-friendly and UI-based, which are very straightforward in nature. Basically, there are no complexities involved. So, a person involved in the solution's implementation can understand everything.

Meraki SD-WAN is a scalable solution because changes are being made to the solution, enabling it to work in different environments. In short, the perfect set of decisions is being made for the solution. I have experience working with the solution on a range of user scales, from 500 to 10,000 users.

Since I am a consultant currently, I won't be able to say whether I have plans to increase the solution's usage since I am presently not working on the solution.

Meraki SD-WAN's technical support can be considered a very fast one. I rate the solution's technical support nine and a half out of ten.

Positive

I have previously used Viptela SD-WAN.

Meraki SD-WAN’s setup is straightforward because Cisco has control over everything. The solution is deployed in a cloud environment from the first day, which has been my experience since 2013 when using cloud-based solutions was not as prevalent as it is now.

I won't be able to speak about how many days it took to deploy the solution since I am not involved in its technical part.

To deploy Meraki SD-WAN, you need to connect your devices with the Cisco cloud environment, for which you need to give the gateway from your devices, and that message needs to be connected with the Cisco environment. Once connected, Cisco will provide you with the platform to manage your devices. Since they have admin rights, everything will be managed by Cisco.

Regarding the personnel involved in the deployment and maintenance of the solution, if we consider the operations part, which includes a VCP and a person for DRP, four people are involved, including a lead and a manager.

I believe Cisco offers some of the best solutions. Meraki's routers, switches, and wireless solutions are some of the best.

You need an open platform to work with Meraki SD-WAN, whereas Aruba can be a bit more complex. That's why Cisco Meraki SD-WAN is generally preferred. Overall, I rate this solution a nine out of ten.

The auto VPN feature is important because it automates many tasks, making things simpler and faster. It helps with setting up devices and changing configurations without manual effort.

Meraki SD-WAN helps save money by monitoring applications and ensuring service levels. This gives businesses a clear view of how well their operations are running and whether service providers meet their needs.

The Meraki SD-WAN has been mainly focused on Wi-Fi in the past, but with the introduction of the client, they're likely to enhance their AI-driven initiatives. This could mean providing more predictive insights to customers, but it might take time to develop fully.

The tool has challenges with features like multiple-link support, which currently only supports up to three links. Additionally, it doesn't offer router integration, and forward error correction is another missing feature. The scalability of Meraki SD-WAN is good, but there are limitations to the performance of the concentrator devices, especially in larger deployments. While the cloud scale is not an issue, the performance of the devices in branches and data centres is limited.

This can be an issue for larger customers with high traffic volumes. The roadmap includes plans to improve scalability, but progress may be slow.

I rate the tool's deployment a ten out of ten. 

The tool's support is not very good. The process is ongoing while they are not fully integrated with Cisco TAC. 

Neutral

Regarding pricing, Meraki SD-WAN is quite competitive, especially compared to solutions like Fortinet. However, it's essential to consider that Meraki requires cloud orchestration, which adds to the overall cost. Overall, it's one of the most competitive solutions from Cisco for SD-WAN.

Meraki SD-WAN is one of the best and easiest solutions to implement. It's very user-friendly, making it simple for users and partners to sell and deploy. Additionally, it offers a range of security features and the ability to integrate with SaaS platforms. However, compared to other vendors, it lacks some important features, and although they're on the roadmap, they're taking a bit longer to roll out.

The product is successful in various environments, especially in retail and specific industries like finance. Retail accounts for around 30 percent of its usage. I would rate the Meraki SD-WAN a nine on a scale of one to ten. It's simple to use, scalable and offers easy access to the API. However, it's not a perfect ten because it lacks some important features, and it is slow in terms of rolling out these features for customers. 

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.

Meraki SD-WAN is connected to branches and the data center. You can also connect branches or connect remote users to their respective offices. It enables users working in hybrid environments, whether from the office or home, to access their applications on the cloud.

Firstly, the solution manages other market products on the same dashboard. It is very simple and can be managed in three clicks. Secondly, There are many device models on Meraki MX devices. Also, it has a license with variable duration from one year to five years.

The product supports small and medium business solutions. It could be improved to support more enterprise use cases.

The solution can support more security features like the Cisco firewall.

I have been using Meraki SD-WAN for three years.

The product’s stability is very perfect.

The solution’s scalability is awesome. You can scale it up.

We recommend this solution to small and medium-sized businesses.

The initial setup is simple and common.

I rate the product’s pricing a five out of ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive.

Meraki SD-WAN is a combination of two products: Firewall and router. When you compare these options with other vendors, you will not find the same as Meraki. Meraki is best for small and medium business solutions.

Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

We primarily use the access points and switches for remote locations for a client. We have 100 or more remote offices, and we connect those together to a data center in Florida.

We like that it is cloud-enabled.

The solution is easy to use. It's so simple to set up and connect the connection points. We don't require any static IPs or anything like that on our ISPs. It's very quick and easy.

It is stable and reliable.

The solution can scale so long as you are scaling Meraki products together. 

It offers a very good "single pane of glass," which helps with management and visibility.

I don't have any notes for improvement. 

Technical support could be more knowledgeable and responsive. 

You do have to pay for the solution in perpetuity. 

I've used the solution for six or seven years. 

The stability is pretty good. I'd rate it an eight or nine out of ten. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. 

The solution is very scalable as long as it is a Meraki-to-Meraki environment. 

I'd rate the scalability eight out of ten. 

Technical support isn't the best. They aren't as responsive as we would like. The quality of the techs needs to be better. They need to be more knowledgeable. 

Neutral

The solution is very simple to set up, and we don't need any static IPs from our ISPs. This simplifies things. 

I'd give the ease of setup a ten out of ten. 

Meraki's a subscription service. You "pay forever," and in that sense, it can be a little expensive. That said, I'd rate it seven out of ten in terms of affordability. 

I'm a customer and end-user. 

Other than warning people that it is a subscription, this does offer a single pane of glass which makes it easy to manage if you have multiple sites.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten. 

Our connectivity was pretty good even before we used Meraki. After we used Meraki, everything worked fine and still does. The thing is that once we started using Meraki, our management became simpler. It's simpler for us to become simpler.

We have other solutions, and we wanted one that would integrate with our current ones. This product is pretty good and simple, so we learned the simplicity of a product.

We currently use some features. It is secure, and some features, like work device management, are very useful.

We selected this solution because it needs to be always connected. In some cases, like an Internet outage, this can make the solution unmanageable.

If the network disconnects, we have access to the device but cannot make any changes.

I have been using Meraki SD-WAN for the last six months.

During the initial setup, it wasn't stable. It was very problematic, and we had a lot of issues. Now it's very stable.

I rate the solution’s stability an eight out of ten.

The solution’s scalability is good. 2,000 users are using this solution.

We use the Meraki SD-WAN solution daily as users who consume the network. However, our involvement is very limited if you're asking about managing the devices or connecting to them. We barely manage it because it's largely automatic. It works well, so we typically only intervene about once a week.

I rate the solution’s scalability a ten out of ten.

Technical support is very cumbersome. It's not on point. It takes them a lot of time to understand the problems. It's very complex.

Neutral

The initial setup is easy. However, it took us a lot of time to work with an integrator and to declutter, and it took us weeks to deploy.

Meraki is a combination of cloud and on-prem, but most of our deployments are on-prem connected to the cloud. The management of Meraki is always on the cloud, but the devices are on-prem, and we have deployed multiple devices on-prem.

We use a third party for deployment. It still took us a lot of time. 

The product's pricing is moderate.

Overall, I rate the solution a seven out of ten.

It's for enterprise networking. So some of the customers are from the BFSA domain, and some of the customers are from manufacturing. It's a distributed customer base.

Any customer looking for a single solution that can serve them for network security, which can serve them for the SD-Branch all branch networking. We use it for this purpose. It's used for a combination of SD-WAN and SD-Branch plus security.

Everything is under one umbrella. The Meraki dashboard is one of the valuable features which I use. I can control the devices across walls and across the landscape.

It's not difficult to set up the solution. 

The solution is stable.

It can scale well. 

The cloud area and the security area can be improved. Meraki has a limitation, especially on the cloud. If I deploy the services on the cloud and I want to make a site-to-site connection or maybe I have to do some sort of routing, inbound routing, it is not properly working with the Cisco Meraki. It needs to be matured a bit.

They need to offer proper integration of the security features. They talk about the next-gen technology, the next-gen UTM feature. It's not a complete security solution, however. 

I've used the solution for about five years now. 

The solution is stable and reliable. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. 

We can easily scale the solution. 

We are supporting multiple customers that use this solution. There are approximately 5,000 people using the access. 

We are well connected with the RR account manager. He is based out of Australia. Every time, whenever we have some sort of need, he is the go-to guy for us.

Positive

We use a variety of SD-WAN technologies. 

The solution is very easy to deploy.

How long it takes depends on the kind of site you are setting up. If I'm tiering the site, and have 20 users or 30 users and have a couple of links and the security postures are not very complex, maybe I can do the deployment in a week's time. 

I can do two or three cuts over a week if it is small. You can bifurcate. I don't have any ready-made answer as to how long it will take as every setup is different. 

We do look into ROI and show clients possible ROI if they decide to go with Meraki. 

The price of the solution varies. It depends on the customer. For most of the customer deployments, we tend to do either three or five years of licensing. Having a longer-term give us some discounting in terms compared to one year.

We are partners. 

We use the MX64 deployment, although it goes all the way up to 300.

I don't want to be Meraki biased, however, if anyone is looking for the kind of solution that can include the branch office or the network security or even a Cisco Umbrella kind of solution, Meraki is the right choice.

From an SD-WAN perspective, I would rate the solution seven out of ten. I'm just cutting down three numbers due to the lacking of cloud networking and the weaker security posture.