Meraki SD-WAN Reviews

We implemented Meraki SD-WAN to replace our traditional WAN infrastructure, particularly for our email and messaging system (referred to as MLSP).

We have successfully transitioned to SD-WAN. So, it's primarily used for connecting our remote sites.

I like it because it works. Moreover, the solution is pretty easy to configure.

Meraki SD-WAN had trouble prioritizing traffic for VoIP calls, specifically for Microsoft Teams. They faced challenges for sometime when you set up QoS on Meraki's access points. There are profiles available for different services, such as Microsoft Teams, which effectively put all the rules in place for you. During their SD-WAN deployment, these profiles were not accessible to them. It's possible that Meraki has since introduced them. Therefore, having profiles for different services would be beneficial.

Meraki SD-WAN could make the license cheaper; the licenses cost a fortune.

I have been using Meraki SD-WAN for a year. 

We've had a few minor things where it's gone down, but it has been stable most of the time.

I rate the solution’s stability a nine out of ten.

Meraki SD-WAN is pretty easy to scale. You just buy more devices; it is easy.

I rate the solution’ scalability a ten out of ten. We have about 150 users using this solution.

The customer support has been very good. The Cisco account manager named, Luke Brennan was really very helpful. If you ring him, he'll answer, and he'll tell you what you need to know. They are good.

The initial setup was pretty simple. We were able to do it in a day.

We did have an integrator to help while setting up.

We've got one person in the team doing the maintenance, although we have somebody else who knows quite well that we do lean on external parties quite heavily, a company called Lixcel. Overall, we have a team of two people for maintenance. 

The solution is expensive. I rate the solution’s pricing a six out of ten, where one is expensive, and ten is cheap.

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

We are resellers. We provide solutions including Meraki SD-WAN to our clients.

I like the entire set of features and the analytics.

If you compare Meraki with other solutions, the level of security is minimal.

The security needs to be improved, which is why we also use FortiGate. Meraki offers the client basic security, it is not the same as what FortiGate is offering. The customers question the security as they see that they have some loopholes. They feel that a hacker can easily enter your data. When you operate the network to the family, on the outside a hacker can see the IP address inside the network.

Customers will request a firewall to protect the network.

I would like to see Meraki include firewall security. Also, they should have encryption inside the router to make the data secure.

I have been working with Meraki SD-WAN for more than three years.

We are using models MX64 and MX100.

So far it has been stable. We have no issues with stability.

Currently, we have 10 customers who each have 30 to 50 clients using Meraki SD-WAN.

Technical support is good.

When we have encountered problems, technical support has been quick to respond.

We are also working with Fortinet.

It is easier to deploy Meraki when you compare it with FortiGate.

Meraki SD-WAN is better suited for customers who have small branches, who don't have secure data to be transferred.

Meraki is not suitable for companies that require high security.

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

The best feature we're using is the packet shaping. We can feed the traffic shaping rules according to our requirements, so if we need application-based packet shaping, we can configure it. If we want URL-based traffic shaping, we can do that too.

Also, we can enable per-client bandwidth according to our requirements. 

The solution can only support two up-links, so if you have three internet lines, there is not a provision to connect the third internet line. There is a provision to use the cellular data like a dongle, and you can use that dongle to connect the third line. We need that feature because we need to have three internet lines. The product should be able to support more than three internet lines.

I've been working with Meraki for the last four and a half years. 

It is stable for my business requirements. Some of our locations are assembly branches, so we use MX60 at those locations. We use that effective product for user compatibility, and we haven't had any issues.

The solution is scalable. We have 100 locations using this solution. 

We had a licensing issue, so we contacted the support team and got a response. I would rate their help as a four out of five. 

Previously, we were using the MPLS network. We then removed the MPLS network and installed Meraki products, which are compatible with this technology, so that's why we're using this product now. 

The initial setup is very easy, you just need to configure the IP addresses, gateway, subnet mask, and DNS. Once it's connected to the internet, you have to claim the device on the dashboard, and then the dashboard will automatically show if it's online or not. Once it is online, you can configure the policies, as per your requirements, through the dashboard. The remaining part of the setup can be performed and configured on the dashboard.

It takes around 15 to 20 minutes to configure it. 

We have a yearly license. 

You can use this solution for SMB branches according to your requirements. At this time, you cannot use Meraki on a single device, so suppose you have a core suite, distribution suite, and access suite. If you're a data center, you cannot use the solution at this point.

I would rate this solution as an eight out of ten. It is very user-friendly, and it doesn't take much time to configure the simple dashboard.

We use it to provide our customers with a single dashboard for visibility, monitoring, and control across the networks. It makes it easy for us to integrate particular services with the customer's overall requirements.

The features of SD-WAN are very appealing because you have a centralized dashboard and multiple options to terminate. You have an internet leased line, which means that you can connect your broadband and 3G and 4G cellular networks on the same router. This makes it easy for us to manage everything on a single dashboard. That is, you can integrate multiple stacks in such a way that you do not have to maintain any other dashboard. You get single-pane-of-glass accessibility with Meraki.

Meraki is lagging behind in using a single pipe from service providers. That is, it would be good if they could use both the internet leased line and broadband connectivity.

In a future release, I would like to see integration with a security solution like Cisco Umbrella. This will give complete visibility on a single dashboard.

We started using this solution six months ago.

The data plane is installed on-premises, and the management plane is in the cloud.

It's very stable, and the overall cloud availability or management plan availability is almost 99.5%. It is absolutely awesome.

You can scale it at any level; there is no limit to the scalability. The best part is that it can be managed remotely. You do not have to send in an engineer. You just have to send the box to the customer, and they just have to plug it into the network. You can configure Meraki devices right from the workplace.

The technical support for this solution is absolutely superb. It's available 24/7. If our engineers are facing any issues, technical support is always available.

The replacement cycle is absolutely superb. Cisco support is globally number one, and I would give them a ten out of ten.

Positive

The initial setup is very simple.

The price can vary depending on the challenges that you need to address. When you look at the stability and reliability against the price, you absolutely get the value for the price.

I would recommend Meraki SD-WAN to those who have multiple sites across several different geographical locations and to those who really want to connect their branch offices, their depos, their factories, etc.

On a scale from one to ten, I would rate Meraki SD-WAN at nine.

We have multiple ISP's connected, usually it's two. Two ISP's per site and we have to make sure that the site-to-site connectivity is managed and is maintained — the redundancy has to be maintained. 

The different services that we offer from different offices are available wherever we need them. That's the purpose of going with the Meraki SD-WAN solution versus another company. It's very straightforward. Their full mesh network just works. That's important.

The seamless end-to-end setup is really what makes it beautiful; that's why Meraki is good. It's much easier than some of the other vendors to manage and keep track of what's going on because you can see it in real-time on the portal. I don't really feel like VALO Cloud gives you a good idea of what's going on. VALO Cloud devices don't work nearly as well, in my opinion, as the Meraki devices.

I think they should enhance the security. I feel like the security is decent, but some other people that I work with say there are better options available. Cisco requires you to upgrade the firmware to custom firmware on the devices you want to go beyond Diffie-Hellman five. DH5 is in the lower part of the spectrum. Other devices, even Cisco devices are using DH15 or higher. I think DH24 is the highest that's currently available. 

The feature set right now requires a firmware upgrade that's custom to enable that kind of encryption. They should just have it in a dropdown. If they could fix that, I could tell my other colleagues, "Hey, look, Cisco can do it right out of the box." To enable higher-end encryption, higher than Diffie-Hellman five, DH5, requires a custom firmware. If they could make that built into the standard firmware as an option, I would love that. 

I think that from Cisco's perspective, they've chosen not to do that simply because it requires more performance.

That's how they keep it because they say, "Oh, look at the performance. It's the same as the other guy." Yeah, but the other guy's using DH15 or DH14 and you're using DH5. The level of encryption means more horsepower required from the processor on the devices so that's why it increases the footprint. The more CPU, the hotter it gets and then it doesn't last as long; the performance is not as good because it's using more resources, etc. Cisco should definitely sell equipment with better processes or better performance for our processes because that would give us a higher level of encryption on our firewalls.

I have been using Meraki SD-WAN for roughly four to five years.

The setup time is excellent. The ease of setup is excellent. It's a set it and forget it solution. Once we created the mesh network, if we have to change an ISP, it doesn't mean we have to change an entire configuration. We just unplug it, plug the new one in, change the IPs and it works. Some SD-WAN providers give you a valid internet IP address as part of their solution, and others don't. A lot of the SD-WAN providers that provide internet access use Meraki devices as a black box. They just hand off one interface to the client-side and that's it.

Overall, on a scale from one to ten, I would give Meraki SD-WAN a rating of eight. If they could do better on the performance side, that really would make a difference.

I'm using Cisco Meraki, both for the firewall and software-defined network.  

For the time being, we are sort of picking out the best way to use it in terms of the number of licenses and what we actually need to be able to oversee and have control over — what we really need to do. We are still looking at what are the most essential parts and whether we should increase the number of licenses or just to keep what we already have at the moment. We are taking it step-by-step for now.  

In terms of the firewall, actually what I found most interesting was that the amount of information you can get from overseeing the system from a centralized place. For example, we know the way people logged in, when they logged out, and how they access work that is on individual computers. It provides a lot of information.  

So, basically the most valuable feature so far is just the information we can actually get from the system without actually having to go into every single device. You can just get it all from one point, gather all the information that would usually take you about up to 10 minutes per computer and get it almost instantly.  

In terms of Software Defined Networking, when our older firewall was used in the setup, it was a very different configuration of various computers. What we actually thought we had was sometimes outdated and possibly not being used at all in one or two cases. Using this product was a chance to find out where actually there are vulnerabilities in our system and which places need to be updated that had not been properly updated because they sort of fell between the cracks.  

Because I have not been using the product for very long, I'm really just learning it and being overwhelmed by the amount of information that I can actually get from the system. There is really nothing that I can think of at the moment that needs to be improved. I'm just really happy about basically everything. It might happen that something will become important sometime as we get more used to the product and we are able to look into it better. But for the moment it seems to cover everything we need.  

Possibly there may be more options for integration between computers, projectors, television — sort of being able to more easily make everything included in one solution. It would be even more useful.  

I have been using the product for more than two months.  

Our impressions of the stability of SD-WAN is good at this point. We have had no issues that I know of up until this moment.  Whether we will later on remains uncertain. For now  everything is stable and working well.

The scalability of the solution does not seem like it will be a problem.  

We have not had help directly from Cisco's technical support. We did have help once indirectly through another company that we used to help us to sort out our old system. That was two years ago and I was not personally involved.  

Actually, I'm only now comparing how this system works to our experience with the old system we used. That is not something I can do instantly. But the reason we chose this solution was to consolidate and make use of improved features.  

The initial setup for the product was straightforward and we had no issues. Our deployment took approximately only about two hours.  

We did use the help of a consultant who knew more about the implementation of the product, but in the end, it really was just writing down which plug went from where to where. That was sort of our biggest issue.  

We were satisfied working with the consultant as they did help the process. In the end, we were sure it was set up correctly.  

We went to a conference two years ago to start researching another solution like Fortinet  FortiGate. Meraki was the one that seemed to stand out more to me.  

My advice to other people considering this as a solution is that I would probably just recommend them the same server and set up that we have. It sort of depends on what the person or the business needs. There are questions about how much control over it that you want to have, how much you really need to be able to oversee everything, et cetera. In terms of security issues, I think it is wonderful to be able to actually see where the pitfalls of our infrastructure are and stuff like that. But my gut feeling is I think I would probably just recommend the same system as we have.  

But the problem with that is I also don't know how Fortinet works because I haven't tested and implemented it myself. It looked promising when we researched it two years ago. I don't know, maybe it is just as good as Meraki. From what I've seen from comparisons between the two, they seem to be similar in terms of usability and price. I could be mistaken about some of that. But I'm happy with what we have, so I can recommend our system as something that is working for us.  

On a scale from one to ten where one is the worst and ten is the best, I would rate Meraki SD-WAN, Software Defined Networking as an eight given the fact that I've only been working on it this short of time.  

We used Meraki SD-WAN for connectivity between our stores, primary data center, and service locations.

Meraki SD-WAN improved the way my company functions because it allowed quicker time to market for connectivity, efficacy, and security. It also contributed to better expense management in terms of not using dedicated services, instead utilizing more public cloud services to establish connectivity.

What I found most valuable in Meraki SD-WAN is its simplicity. I also like its manageability.

The only area for improvement in Meraki SD-WAN is its licensing model, as well as its cost structure.

I have three to four years of experience with Meraki SD-WAN, and I used it in the past year.

Meraki SD-WAN is a stable solution. It had well-managed updates that created a pretty stable and manageable environment overall.

Considering the number of locations where Meraki SD-WAN was used, I found it scalable.

I would rate Meraki SD-WAN technical support as four out of five.

Positive

We didn't use other solutions apart from Meraki SD-WAN.

Meraki SD-WAN had a straightforward setup.

I've seen ROI from Meraki SD-WAN.

I don't have information on the exact cost of Meraki SD-WAN, but I'd rate it a three out of five, just because the licensing model is very much associated with the Meraki solution. Meraki has its own pricing model.

Other solutions were evaluated, but I can't recall which ones off the top of my head.

Thousands of people used Meraki SD-WAN within the company. Meraki SD-WAN had a substantial deployment because the company I was in had quite a few locations. Hence, about fifteen to twenty people took care of the deployment, but to maintain and monitor Meraki SD-WAN, a minimum of two people would suffice.

There's no plan to increase Meraki SD-WAN usage because of the current economic conditions.

I'd recommend Meraki SD-WAN to others because it's easy to deploy and manage, but my advice is to be aware of the licensing and cost structure of Meraki SD-WAN.

My rating for Meraki SD-WAN is eight out of ten.

We use Meraki SD-WAN for SD-WAN and WiFi.

The security could improve in Meraki SD-WAN.

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

The stability of Meraki SD-WAN is good.

Meraki SD-WAN is scalable.

We have approximately 5,000 people using this solution in my company.

The support that is provided by Meraki SD-WAN could be improved by providing help with security.

Meraki SD-WAN has an easy installation.

I would recommend this solution to others, it is very good.

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