Anyone using Meraki switches?
- Thread starter DHR
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Caporegime
Got 33 of them spread around Cornwall and Devon as well as over 200 Meraki APs and been very impressed with the ease of use and reliability.
If you've got any questions, post away
If you've got any questions, post away
Got 33 of them spread around Cornwall and Devon as well as over 200 Meraki APs and been very impressed with the ease of use and reliability.
If you've got any questions, post away
Cheers, it's more the reliability / known issues and gotchas I'm after specially from a switch perspective the wireless kit I know and love. Our supplier was mentioning they've had people experience issues with spanning tree and that but it didn't sound too severe.
Have you had any problems with stuff rolled out in the forced firmware updates? Biggest query I've been asked as well is what happens if they go bankrupt etc given they brick the device if you don't renew the license?
Got 33 of them spread around Cornwall and Devon as well as over 200 Meraki APs and been very impressed with the ease of use and reliability.
If you've got any questions, post away
You got any Surface 4's using the AP's? We have a few hundred AP's but the Surfaces getting awful speeds via wireless. Around 2 - 2.5Mbps tranfer speeds compared to a laptop which easily max's the speed.
Caporegime
Given Cisco own them I would be very surprised if they ever went bankrupt. I imagine the devices would be bricked if it did happen though.
Haven't had a single problem with any firmware update so far.
We've got two in the field and one in the office but it's not something I'm aware of. Will test it tomorrow and get back to you.
Yeah if you don't mind.
A user wouldn't notice if they are just using it for general use, but I noticed it when copying an ISO over to one and couldn't believe how slow it was going. Now that I got one myself in work I want to switch over from a laptop but wouldn't be interested if the wireless is crap for internal use. I also noticed they can sometimes drop from an SSID if they are using radius.
Try going to my.meraki.com and doing a speed test. I tested on a number of them and they all won't go above 20 and so as low as 10.
I logged it with meraki and bar the normal test's which I had already done they are giving up and putting it down to the surface.
I have a mix of 12, 16's, 18's, 24's and Z1 all with the same issue.
A user wouldn't notice if they are just using it for general use, but I noticed it when copying an ISO over to one and couldn't believe how slow it was going. Now that I got one myself in work I want to switch over from a laptop but wouldn't be interested if the wireless is crap for internal use. I also noticed they can sometimes drop from an SSID if they are using radius.
Try going to my.meraki.com and doing a speed test. I tested on a number of them and they all won't go above 20 and so as low as 10.
I logged it with meraki and bar the normal test's which I had already done they are giving up and putting it down to the surface.
I have a mix of 12, 16's, 18's, 24's and Z1 all with the same issue.
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Thanks guys, this is exactly the sort of conversation I wanted to stimulate. Thus far the only thing that's stopping me from being able to recommend the switches specifically is that effective kill switch, for wireless in that sense I'm less bothered. If they left the devices unmanageable, but still functioning I'd be fine with it, it just seems like the sort of risk that could end people's careers if you get what I mean?
Not sure what you mean by the careers bit?
Are you suggesting if a load of switches or AP's just stopped working if the company went bust?
It's a risk we all take when we take sub's for stuff managed via the cloud. It should always be factored for.
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If you can afford Meraki switches then they are great. I wouldn't use anything else for remote office deployments because then you have to mess with VPN tunnels or local IT support etc and it all gets messy.
Whether you feel they offer good value or not totally depends on your company - if you're in the same office as the switches and your role involves sitting around and reacting in the event of problems and you have the skill to manage a stack of Cisco 2960-X switches or similar then the Meraki option looks really expensive. If you're paid to bring real value to the business then taking yourself away from that task to make a network work again seems wasteful. I would argue that the days of the dedicated good-at-everything IT person in a small business (<100 users) is a fading role, so you'll see MSPs dropping Meraki switches in for their clients with Catalyst's being the go-to option for the companies large enough to have dedicated in-house IT staff.
Anyone dismissing them outright due to the price hasn't done the full TCO calculations.
Whether you feel they offer good value or not totally depends on your company - if you're in the same office as the switches and your role involves sitting around and reacting in the event of problems and you have the skill to manage a stack of Cisco 2960-X switches or similar then the Meraki option looks really expensive. If you're paid to bring real value to the business then taking yourself away from that task to make a network work again seems wasteful. I would argue that the days of the dedicated good-at-everything IT person in a small business (<100 users) is a fading role, so you'll see MSPs dropping Meraki switches in for their clients with Catalyst's being the go-to option for the companies large enough to have dedicated in-house IT staff.
Anyone dismissing them outright due to the price hasn't done the full TCO calculations.
Caporegime
Nexus 6P - 50.52Mbps
Dell E5550 (Win 10) - 56.07Mbps
Surface 4 - 45.62Mbps
Signal was 24dB
This is exactly what we've done. Cisco 3750's at head office and our DR site and Meraki's at all of our satellite sites.
We've got inhouse Cisco expertise for the 3750's but the Meraki GUI is so easy to use they don't require the same skillset to manage so I look after them.
I don't have any formal networking qualifications btw
The biggest blocker for us at the moment, is essentially the "network as a service" setup. My biggest fear of pushing them into the business is that they're seen as a traditional bit of hardware, buy it, shove it in the rack, leave it there with little or no maintenance. If the license lapses on the Meraki, that's it, the box dies. It's worth noting that we could go down the 2960-x route, but the management of them would predominantly be performed by an MSP.
Nexus 6P - 50.52Mbps
Dell E5550 (Win 10) - 56.07Mbps
Surface 4 - 45.62Mbps
Signal was 24dB
This is exactly what we've done. Cisco 3750's at head office and our DR site and Meraki's at all of our satellite sites.
We've got inhouse Cisco expertise for the 3750's but the Meraki GUI is so easy to use they don't require the same skillset to manage so I look after them.
I don't have any formal networking qualifications btw
What model's are you using?
I can't even get over 20Mbps on an MR16. This is an AP with no other traffic on it plugged into a gig port!
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Soldato
I would suggest Aruba's new cloud configuration offerings (HP Procurve 2530s etc) but the last time I tried to sell some HP didn't even have list pricing for it. That was ~3 months ago so maybe they've pulled their finger out.
We have 5 MS220-48 and 2 MS320-48 in one of our offices. The L2 are using virtual stacking back to the core L3s which in turn is setup as a warm spare.
We use Mitel phones with tagged switch ports and never had any issues. The thing we love about using Meraki equipment is the central admin and the stats we get off it. Sure you could use Ciscoworks or the HP equivalent but it's just not the same.
Caporegime
We've got an MR12 and an MR16 in the office, both are plugged in to a Cisco 3750.
Standard trunk port config yeah? I can't figure out why I am getting such crap speeds.
Caporegime
Yep, trunked and passing multiple VLANs to multiple SSIDs
Have you seen this article?
http://www.windowscentral.com/surface-pro-4-slow-wi-fi-fix
Might help
Have you seen this article?
http://www.windowscentral.com/surface-pro-4-slow-wi-fi-fix
Might help