Meraki SD-WAN Reviews

I'm a vendor. I sell the solution to clients. 

A lot of our customers really enjoy the Meraki Dashboard. It’s a single pane of glass. If you have their wireless, you have their switching; you have their cameras, you have their firewalls, then you do get a single pane of glass - which is a really strong talking point for us with our customers.

People are struggling a little bit with the lead times right now. It’s hard to actually get the hardware. There’s a long waiting list. That said, I’m unsure as to if that's anything that any manufacturer could really control right now.

Meraki is not viewed as an enterprise solution. It's more of a medium SMB-type solution. Although that really shouldn't be the case, I do see that it has that stigma associated with it.

I wish I was selling more of it, but I don't. We have a number of different types of vendors. It is something we sell. However, I have not personally sold a lot of it.

The solution is stable. There aren’t bugs or glitches, and it doesn’t crash or freeze. It is reliable.

The solution is quite scalable even though potential clients see it as a good solution for SMBs. It has the power to work for enterprises. It can scale.

Tech support is good. It's strong.

We sell Cisco access points and Meraki access points. With Cisco, the solution we deal with is called Viptela.

The initial setup is very, very straightforward. You set it and forget it. It’s probably easier than any other solution.

You probably don't have more than one or two people associated with maintenance. It would depend on the size of the environment. Obviously, for an enterprise customer like Starbucks, you’ve got to have hands-on people available. However, if you're just a local Chicago company like us, then I would say that it’s fine to have minimal people - usually admins - on maintenance.

We are a Cisco Gold partner.

I’d recommend the solution. I’d rate it eight out of ten.

It's typically a better solution for a company that has multiple locations. If you are a company with a headquarters and then you have locations across the country or the world, that would be the best time to look into SD-WAN. I would also say that SD-WAN is not just a wireless solution. It is also a security solution.

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 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.

One of my clients is using Meraki SD-WAN in their office to manage their internal desktops, internal servers, and laptops. Any connectivity for the home-based workers is managed by Cisco Meraki Switches.

I appreciate the cloud-based management feature the most. It's a crucial aspect for me because it allows me to manage the configuration remotely without having to visit the on-premise location. The ability to do this from my home is a major benefit. Additionally, security is good.

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

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

When we upgraded from the old Cisco models, we encountered very few challenges during the migration to Meraki SD-WAN. In the future, there may be a few challenges to overcome during migration.

This solution is used mostly in enterprise-sized companies.

I rate the scalability of Meraki SD-WAN a seven out of ten.

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

The deployment time of Meraki SD-WAN can vary. For someone new to the process, it could take a couple of hours. However, for someone with hands-on experience, such as myself, it only takes approximately two to three hours to set up the entire configuration.

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

We used two people for the deployment of the solution.

I have received a return on investment using this solution. The manageability cost has been reduced.

Pricing is a significant concern for me. Amongst all the firewall brands, Cisco is one of the most expensive options. Despite its reputation and security features, many customers opt for other brands, such as SonicWall because of their lower prices. These other brands offer similar features to Cisco but at a lower cost. Cisco's pricing is something that could be improved to attract more customers. The brand has a good reputation, but when it comes to budgeting and pricing, it is not always the first choice.

The solution is very expensive.

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

In my professional network, when people ask me about which brand of switches to use, Meraki SD-WAN is always the first recommendation. However, the final decision often comes down to budget. If a customer has the budget for Meraki SD-WAN, I recommend it, but if budget is a concern, there are other brands that can be considered.

I rate Meraki SD-WAN a nine out of ten

Meraki SD-WAN serves as our SD-WAN. As I previously stated, we have over a thousand retail stores across the country, and we have Cisco Meraki at each one. 

I'm not particularly close to it. Because our infrastructure team is in charge of that. I'm more on the information security side. But, from what I understand, the product works well and there isn't much that can be done to improve it.

More automation is always a good thing, but I'm not particularly close to the Meraki. That is more of an infrastructure team's responsibility. I'm not too familiar with the Meraki environment, but I suppose more automation is always a good thing.

We have over a thousand retail locations across the country, and we use Cisco Meraki for our SD-WAN solutions in all of them.

While I am new to the company and have only been with them for five months, I have been using this solution for a few years.

We are working with the latest version.

I'm not directly involved in SD-WAN monitoring and maintenance, but based on what I've heard from our infrastructure team, it's working well.

Meraki SD-WAN is a stable solution.

Meraki SD-WAN is scalable.

We have approximately 4,000 users in our company.

I have not contacted technical support. That is something that our infrastructure team handles.

We do not use Juniper.

The initial setup is straightforward.

I am not aware of the licensing fees.

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

I am the architecture lead.

I believe this solution does a perfect job. It delivers what it's supposed to do and it's secure. The Meraki interface is really well driven and very mature. I like that it's a dashboard on the cloud so profile settings can be done from anywhere.

I think Meracki still has some work to do in terms of catching up with other companies when it comes to AI. 

I've been using this solution for a year. 

The solution is stable. 

When it comes to scalability, there's no compromise with Cisco, there is always scalability. 

Our technical support is local, from Saudi Arabia, and I believe the Smart Tech function is really awesome. 

The initial setup is straightforward, everything is built-in, and it's plug-and-play.

You need to pay for quality. We don't have a problem with the price but I know there is competition. We have an enterprise contract with Cisco. 

I take this solution 10 out of 10. 

We are customers of Meraki and I'm the company product manager. 

Meraki has a sexy interface, they've done a great job with it. 

The solution sometimes drops VoIP calls, which is a nuisance. The solution is not true SD-WAN, rather L3 VPNs. All they do is put a wrapper around it so that you don't have to configure it, but it lacks controllers. 

The solution is stable, despite the occasional VoiP dropouts. 

The solution is scalable. 

The company provides excellent technical support. 

Positive

It is pretty easy to set up with the caveat that it's not really SD-WAN.

This is not a cheap solution. Cisco has never tried to be a price leader, it's not their focus.

If a company is looking for a true automated failover, it's important to ask some very pointed questions before purchasing it.

I rate the solution seven out of 10. 

Meraki SD-WAN is used to manage traffic between customers. We can make traffic-shaping rules, limit or deny sites, etc. SD-WAN can also do load balancing.

SD-WAN is a complete enterprise solution for securing traffic. 

The blocklist on the Cisco Meraki side isn't complete or very large. We'd like to see them update and expand this. 

I have used Meraki SD-WAN for seven years. 

 I rate Meraki SD-WAN nine out of 10 for stability. 

Setting up Meraki SD-WAN isn't difficult, but it isn't simple. It was easy for me because I have worked with other SD-WAN solutions. 

Cisco Meraki firewalls have a 10-year license, but there is a three-year license for other equipment.  

I rate Meraki SD-WAN nine out of 10. Cisco Meraki SD-WAN works better than other solutions. I recommend using Cisco Meraki SD-WAN with the Cisco Meraki Dashboard to centralize all your equipment, such as access points, links, switches, etc., in one console.