What needs improvement with Meraki MS Switches?

The GUI can be improved for a better comfort level.

We prefer Meeraki to be installed only on a local network rather than in a cloud-managed network. Meraki MS Switches are one of our largest categories, with over thirty-five deployed. However, the switches sometimes go offline, preventing us from effectively managing our networks. This issue arises because Meraki switches rely heavily on cloud connectivity. Given our need for reliable local network management, it would be beneficial if Meraki could launch an on-premises software solution. This would make it easier to manage the local network independently of cloud connectivity, especially when the cloud connection is down.

Tracking native ports with IP addresses is not currently possible in Meraki. I can track by hostname, but not IP address. I have requested this feature from Cisco, and they are working on it. So, this is an area of improvement. I would like to be able to use it on the local network. Currently, if there is no internet, I cannot use Meraki because it only works through the online portal. I would like to access the switches locally, even if the internet is down. Thie needs to be changed.

One area where Meraki MS switches could improve is offering smaller switch sizes for distribution switches, as not all networks require the standard 24 or 48 ports. Having more compact options with fewer ports would be beneficial, especially for distribution switches with only a few connections needed. This could help optimize space, power usage, and cost efficiency, particularly for networks with many end-user switches and few distribution switches.

One key challenge often encountered is the perception that strategic products like Cisco and Meraki tend to be more expensive than alternatives like Aruba. It might be perceived as more of a niche product, partly due to its name, as it's still not entirely recognized by the market.

It is a cloud-based product and depends on internet connectivity. It is not limited to specific geographical areas as well. So, we cannot provide these switches in the BFSI segment, especially the banking sector, as they have certain limitations due to regulatory guidelines. They could add NAS encryption protocol to the switches. Nowadays, many customers enquire about this feature.

The challenge we face, not only with Meraki but maybe with all vendors, is the delivery timeline because of our global issues. There is a lead time issue that we are facing, specifically on the Cisco or Meraki. If Cisco can work on something with better lead times, they could regain the edge they lost due to delivery delays that have happened for the last two years. If it's a greenfield kind of opportunity, Meraki does make sense. But, if they can look at opening up a bit of their management portfolio to other vendors, too, maybe it will be more useful because many clients might already have some solutions as part of their environment. In case they have a few switches of some other brand, Fortinet, or they could have switches from HP. If Meraki can also address this point of managing those components as part of their cloud offering, that will help the future upgrade. There is definitely room for improvement in the delivery lead time. In case someone wants to procure something new, inherently, Cisco was having a challenge even for Cisco hardware to get all the components. Even now, as we see, the delivery lead time is close to four to five months. Clients are not ready to wait for five months for a business to start. They want it immediately. They placed the order today, and in another two to three weeks, they need the hardware.

The pricing can be made cheaper.

Management from a single dashboard is what I want to see from Meraki MS Switches.

I don't like some of the mobile device management options. They're a little bit hard to find in the system.

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.

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.

As far as the downside, I would say that they're not data center ideal. They're definitely missing some of the higher end data center Cisco features, but I'm sure those are coming down the road. Probably the only other downside I see to these is that they're very limited in their GUI for the initial configuration.

They need more variety in terms of models to satisfy different customer requirements. There are very limited models right now. The range of models could expand. They need to work on prioritizing different types of data on the network, whether it's voice, data, video, et cetera. Video needs to be prioritized in a much better way, for example. If there are certain search protocols added to these switches that make for better network trafficking, that would be ideal. The lack of availability of hardware is causing issues and bottlenecks. We'd like interoperability to continue to be improved.

I don't see any need for any improvements for my particular use case. They could lower the price.

Meraki MS Switches could improve the process of installing firmware.

Meraki's support for outdoor switches is something that we're facing problems with. This is an area that needs to be improved. Meraki should include an application to assist users with the design of access points.

There are some limitations in Meraki MS Switches. Other switches have more options, such as the Cisco Catalyst Switch.

In my opinion, there's room for improvement cost-wise. With Meraki's licensing terms, you're required to pay an annual licensing fee, which can be for a one-year license or perhaps a five-year license. But if you analyze the costs involved, there are huge expenses incurred as far as the licensing is concerned. It's very costly. When you see the cost of the device and the cost of the license, they're almost the same. So let's say, for example, a device costs $4,200 and you go for a three or four year license, it will cost you the same. And that's for everything; for the wireless, the switches, the firewalls, everything. Of course, the total costs depend on several factors, including the customer requirements, the service provider, and the service integrators (which may have their own partnership bias). With Cisco partners, there are gold level partners which will have different discounts to the silver partners, for instance. Given these factors, I always try to get the maximum discount from the vendor so I can offer a solution to my customers at the lowest margin. Apart from costs, one improvement that I would like to see in terms of features concerns the mobile application. Most users of our switches are now on the web-based interface and I feel it's time for Meraki to start developing the mobile app more seriously, because it's currently not up to standard and a lot of people aren't using it.

The switch capacity needs to be improved. Today we deploy some MS switches for the data center. Previously, it was a small data center and we get the most powerful device into the portfolio of Meraki to respond to this subject. However, it could be great to have a better capacity with 10 gigs or 40 gigs, for example. As a physical device, it's not extremely scalable.

What could be improved in this product is the price. It could be cheaper. Gaining a deeper access or deeper understanding of certain things, and being able to look further into the workings of Meraki MS Switches, is something I'd like in the next release. Having bundles in relation to price would also work perfectly for us.

The traffic reporting should be better in Meraki MS Switches. We want to be able to see all the traffic and where it is going. Additionally, detailed device utilization information would be very helpful for the security personnel. The solution VPN is based on Windows features. They have to come up with their own solution because of what is happening, sometimes it is connecting and sometimes not. If they had their own tool, these types of issues can be mitigated.

I wouldn't say I'm in a position to talk about any improvements because I'm still learning. We're still on the learning curve, so we have not implemented a lot of the things that we can do with the other switches. But I'm sure that maybe during the course of the next month or two, we'll be able to replace enough of these switches to see how well they work.

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've had some hardware failure issues on the POE side on several switches across the years. There seems to be a problem with the POE ports of their unit system.

On the switches, I don't know a whole lot that I would change. Different levels of switches have different layer 2 and layer 3 functionality. It's always nice to have layer 3 functionality across the board if you can, but that drives up the cost. They've got different lines for different amounts of layer 3 functionality. However, on their models that do include full layer 3 access, when you choose to use layer 3 on a switch, it doesn't have the full functioning routing capabilities of an MX firewall. It can be limiting in some of those aspects. I have found myself in a situation where I thought I was going to have the ability to do all the routing from an MX firewall, but even on their fully functional layer 3 switches, you don't have that. There are drawbacks. So, it is not just a, "Oh, I can use a switch instead of a firewall for the routing part of it." The answer is, "That's probably not a good way to think about that."

This product doesn't enable a local configuration without internet access. If you compare this product to Fortinet the granularity of blocks that you can do related to the firewall and reports that you can deliver and control about blocking all access on Fortinet is more than Meraki. And when you talk about number of WANs that you can put on the device, Meraki can have only two WANs and when you have Fortinet you can have at least six sources of WAN.

Their subscription model could be better. Some of our customers prefer a one-time payment to a monthly or yearly subscription model, so they don't buy the product. Technical support could also be better.

It can have better security. It needs more security enhancements, and in particular, a zero-trust element. If we could have external and internal users vetted in the same way as a zero-trust network, that will be handy.

The throughputs, especially the throughput path, can be improved on the core switches. I think they should improve the throughput in the core switches to enable higher throughputs. A little bit of training for customers like online training would definitely help us.

Clients are very confused by technical support. They seem to have trouble reaching Meraki to get the assistance they need. I'd prefer if they'd go for Layer 3 features. We do not have access to these yet. Aruba, for example, offers full Layer 3 features.

It would be great if they can get the price down for small businesses.

Mandatory maintenance is an area that needs improvement.

The biggest area that they fall short on is comparing the performance. I don't have the articles in front of me, but the performance of a Cisco Meraki Switch versus some of the other devices that are more expensive or are equally as expensive as Meraki, they're falling short on the performance, because you're paying so much more money and they're not performing better. That is a big problem when you talk to clients who've researched this. If ease of use and flexibility is important, I usually forego the high-end performance for the money. The performance is not bad, but let's say I bought one of the other Cisco switches or Juniper switches — they perform better for the same amount or even less money. That's a big drawback. They need to work on the performance. Maybe the chipset that they're using is not as good as Juniper, for example. But their goal is not performance, it's consistency. If you're about consistency and ease of use, Cisco is definitely better. If you're about performance, that's where they fall short. Keep in mind, that's my opinion; someone may argue differently with me — that Meraki is not better. It's not slower or less performance-optimized, but it's something I come up against when I discuss it and offer it as a solution versus Juniper or some other devices. I want to use Meraki because I want to be able to plug it in and set it up in 15 minutes. Then when I have to troubleshoot something, it's easy. When I have a problem with the network, I call them up and they help. They actually help. You call up some of these other vendors, they're like, "Huh? Oh, you got to do all this stuff." I'm like, "No, no, no. Let's look at the logs together. Then you tell me what you see. And then I'll fix, or I'll adjust, or we'll replace." I don't want to go through this whole story and song and dance as I did with HP. So it's a problem. Cisco overcomes that, but performance is where they get hurt. When you talk to any of the other guys that do network architecture, they're like, "Well, we're not going to pick Cisco Meraki. We're going to pick the other Cisco switches, or we're going to pick Juniper, or we're going to pick something else, but we're not going to go with Meraki." I'm like, "Okay." But in a small to medium-sized business, you can't beat them.

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.

In this solution, you are lacking a feature that Cisco Classic has that allows you to save your configuration with a serial cable. In some deployments, I would like stacking to act like RAID 1 but not if you are updating the firmware of one switch in a stack. Stacking and switches with Meraki, they need to improve on this. I had a different experience with Extreme Networks which behave completely different.

We had some dashboard licensing issues, maybe because their method of collecting data from the user needs to be more streamlined. It seems that they have collected information from the vendor, but perhaps there is not a proper SOP regarding this. They collected some vague information that was registered and when it came to us, we found out that they didn't use our proper email address. As a result, licensing became an issue. It was only resolved after we contacted them and changed the details of the registration. Consequently, there was a long delay before we started using it. When I registered the system in India, there was no problem. However, in the UAE, the vendors were not collecting and properly verifying the details. The need to streamline the licensing data collection process to fix this. As a manufacturer, or OEM, they might be doing their part correctly, but the vendors might be losing the data. So, they need to be strict on their vendors to collect the information properly. Or, they need to at least contact the people, the end-users, and verify that it is correct. As it is now, they just depend on the vendors' data. Before they register it, they need to contact the customer directly with the data and verify it. Ideally, some kind of SOP should be there. With no SOP in place, the question becomes one of what happens when Cisco takes the data from the vendor and registers the product, but doesn't verify it by contacting the customer. This can happen in cases where the vendor is in a hurry to sell the product. In fact, they might fill in bogus data and give it to Cisco. Then, once the customer gets the product and starts to configure it, they get the licensing issue like we did, which is the first step in the process. The fails only because the data given by the vendor is wrong, and it's not the fault of the customer. If instead, Cisco verified the details with the customer again, once they receive the data, it would be better. As I suggest this, it might seem like a slow process, but in today's world, it is not. They can contact the customer directly, using the provided email or mobile number. They can call them, verify the details, and it will be good for both Cisco and the customer.

The pricing could be cheaper. There should be a focus on the emerging markets to offer better pricing. In India, they are offering it at better pricing for the emerging markets.

I think the cameras should be better integrated so that clients can review real time images on the dashboard. That's a basic feature.

It would be good to include the command-line access someday.

It would be great if the switch can identify the IP address connected to the network port. It seems most of the switches cannot identify the IP address. They can identify the MAC address but not the IP address.

The licensing model needs to be improved. The way they license their products, I'd rather just pay for a device by the device, and not have to pay annual subscription fees.

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 1-3 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. 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. I'm not sure if this delay could be reduced or not by prioritizing communications but it is by no means a show stopper.

This is quite an expensive solution so I'd like to see the cost reduced. The complete installation can be very expensive because the switch doesn't have an option to perform fiber connectivity.

I don't think that the cost is a problem, but sometimes the price requires convincing the customer of the value.

I'm an old CLI guy from Cisco so I've had to give up some of the granularity that I'm used to having. With Cisco I could narrow things down but now I'm stuck to exactly what Meraki gives me. I don't have any options. Previously I used to be able to look at light levels on an object but I can't do that now. Those are a couple of little issues, but I do get it right out of the box whereas with Cisco it requires spending thousands of dollars and buying extra equipment to get the knowledge of what's going on in your network. They've already released some new things on their flagship model. I'd like to see the price come down a little bit, but you've got to pay for what you get like the 38 series switch. With Cisco you can stack them for command and control whereas with Meraki, you can stack them with power, but each individual switch is still controlled as an individual switch. You don't see them as one switch. They're stacked with stacking cables, it's multiple switches. It's little stuff, nothing serious.

Technical support can be faster to respond to non-telephone originated inquiries.

Better alerting capabilities are needed because they do not provide enough notification or detail about events. For example, it doesn't tell me if I have lost an access point, or I'm getting packet drops, or somebody is using excessive bandwidth because of a download they are doing. It is very hard to drill down on these problems and sometimes, you might have to use a third-party solution to pull the reports out. Technical support is in need of improvement.

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.

The pain point for our customers is the pricing and it should be reduced to make it more competitive.

In terms of what could be improved, there's API. For example, we recently implemented Microsoft Azure. We have it integrated now into the dashboard for authentication. Dashboard authentication includes local users which we are creating in the dashboard itself. We integrated Azure with our local active directory. As the administrator in IT, I can log into the dashboard with my AD credentials only, so we used Xero and SAML with the Microsoft Azure. It's working fine. Similarly in the camera. Generally, the camera is in the cloud. In the camera, every field requires you to enter some information. If you have a cloud archive, it will be directed towards your Meraki cloud based on whatever storage license you have, 90 days or 30 days. But we worked on a different approach. We developed some more internal applications with other partners. We are pitching data from the Meraki camera, and we are putting into our internal storage with the Python script in the back-end. Another thing is CMX. There is a location tracking for the employees who are inside, and with Meraki there is a Bluetooth option with a separate radio. They have a separate Bluetooth radio, Air Marshal radio, 2.4 and 5 GHz, for all the different radios, but it's all ELM mode in the old access points. It serves the clients as well as monitors the rogue access points. But in Meraki, we have a separate radio for it to monitor all the Bluetooth clients who are coming and who are identified from the dashboard. We will send it through the API to the location-scanning API to a third-party application and it gives you greater visibility. We can customize our own application of the dashboard. For example if you have a retail shop, you can put your store map on there and you can track the clients, like how many clients have visited. We can customize it. We worked on that customization pack. In terms of troubleshooting, if we get more tools there is an issue. Our pack has some internal access, right? In traditional solutions we can go to the CLI and we can see whatever you want to change and you can play around with it. But in Meraki, if they got additional tools maybe it would help. In terms of MS I see some complications. There are some voice-related services that some customers are expecting, so they want to put an MS firewall in Azure or AWS, and they want to ship the traffic from that firewall. For example, I am at different branches, so the initial firewall will make the decision. They are looking at that kind of scenario. I hear from some of the customers with MS, that there are some voice-related, SIP services. So it's a limitation. If you have a voice service with AmEx, I saw something that SIP ALG will not support AmEx. So that's one limitation here.

The problem that we saw with some customers is that it's very hard to train them to manage everything on the cloud, and some customers don't want this. The firewall is not very powerful. The other week, one of the switches only gave one gigabit of output. It's become a concern for our customers. It is very difficult to know what we should do. There should be a queue available to connect over the VPN. However, there was a lack of an image in the other queue. Once, when a customer wanted to tour the system, there were issues with connectivity to the VPN, which was offputting.

The solution needs to improve its ability to back up the auto-configuration.

The pricing of the product needs to be improved. I find that Cisco products are usually priced quite high. The solution needs to improve its scalability.

The quote-building process is challenging and it needs to be simplified. It is difficult to create a bill of materials and there should be a bundled solution. You still have to select different items from certain locations to build the solution. You can end up leaving out certain items that are needed unless you understand how everything works. Examples are the power supply and the power cable, which are not on the list by default. There should be a top-level part number that allows you to put all of the options that are available, rather than selecting each and every item separately and putting them together.

I would like to see some automation and better integration with the editing tool.

A complaint that I might have about the services is the compliance risk response. If I or our clients put too many devices on a network, threatening emails get triggered by Meraki saying that we are out of compliance. It can put unnecessary fear into the customer of the product that their services will be curtailed or that they will have to pay escalated fees. The customer in turn then pushes the problem on to the reseller — us — which can create an awkward situation. We are seen as a less-trusted advisor because what we provided was poorly planned. I think there is a major problem with warning clients in that way. I've started hearing customers wishing that they had not gotten into a subscription just because of that policy. It is all well good having a subscription policy but making customers edgy is making some consider switching away from Meraki. Losing customers due to the means of enforcement of the subscription service is pretty ill-advised. I think one of the things that Meraki started to develop and then held back on is unified communications. Meraki started beating the drum about using Meraki for VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) and then they suddenly stopped it. It would be nice to actually see that coming to the market, especially in the EMEA (Europe, the Middle East, and Africa). With Cisco's acquisitions such as Broadsoft, Meraki could potentially invest in that technology, so they would be able to provide a voice platform backed by Cisco. It could be an excellent situation and fulfill their promises at the same time.

The solution could be simplified a bit.

The licensing would be improved if shorter terms were offered. There is not much training available for this solution. Better online and remote support is needed. I would like to see support for IoT. We need to be able to add an access point without requiring an additional controller.

The solution doesn't offer anything different from any other solution. It's not a unique product. Sometimes there's a problem with the pricing model they use. They should work to fix this.

The price of this solution should be improved. This solution is too simple for some cases, and there should be more configuration options.

One simple way to improve the product is to reconsider the price. They are more expensive than their competitors. You have to take into account that it is Meraki by Cisco and they know they are the best and that if you need a less expensive solution you can buy other products. If you want the best, you have to pay for it. But certainly they are a bit more expensive than the competitors.

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.