Adtran NetVanta series switches are a very desirable switch set at a reasonable price point with a large amount of configuration ability for both L2 and L3. They are best suited for medium to large institutions that are not Cisco Dependent. They work well for small businesses as well but may be too high of a price point and too large of a feature set needed for a SOHO type set up which may turn away customers in that range. The 1531/P series does offer a smaller switch with the option of PoE in the P model and gives a total of 12 individual ports between the 8 PoE ports, 2 non PoE ports, and 2 SFP ports capable of Gigabit or 2.5Gbps with Adtran's interconnect cable. This may be more suitable for a SOHO set up but again may offer more than many small businesses need and may seem daunting.
Cisco Meraki MS is brilliant in very simple environments where basic segregation is required. Many features are pre-configured as defaults and this makes it easy to configure security and stability features like STP protections and UDLD. It is capable of some more complex functions, such as dot1x authentication. TAC support is easy to access and usually timely. Bundling support into the license and making it available through Dashboard is great. We have had issues monitoring the Cisco Meraki Dashboard using legacy SNMP based system - this means we now effectively have one more network monitoring screen to watch. We also sorely lack an ageing timer for stick MAC address port security - essential in uncontrolled locations with no NAC available. We have also had issues with devices pulling DHCP leasing from the wrong VLAN on initial provisioning and then struggling to transition to our management VLAN when the full config is pulled.
Meraki MS switches are wonderful at allowing a network admin to configure a VPN mesh network without having to have highly specialized knowledge. Unlike Cisco switches, there is no CLI, there is only a GUI, and Meraki support helps you set it up as you add nodes to your network.
Meraki MS switches are easy to deploy. Full stop.
They can work with any firewall or ASA but I would strongly recommend using the Meraki MX security appliance if you are going to use Meraki MS switches because they were made to work together.
They easily stack. It's all done for you in the Meraki cloud control panel.
They will get an address from your admin VLAN's DHCP scope and keep it. Even if you unplug it and move it, you will not have to worry about addressing it.
The GUI is online and you can reach it from anywhere, so as long as you have the credentials, you can manage the network from any device that has a browser.
Being on the cloud its very easy to manage. We have layer 7 visibility and Cisco has introduced stackable MX switches which is even better! The Meraki portal can be accessed via SSO which is important to my organization (although it was a bit difficult to get that implemented initially!)
Cisco support for the Meraki products is great. I have a dedicated representative who I can reach out to at any time. They offer numerous online resources and easy to follow tutorials to help the most novice user feel like a pro. When I need support they were ready and quickly helped me solve my problems.
Meraki MS provides the sweet spot between manageability and functionality, though not at a significantly lower cost. Desktop support engineers can manage it day-to-day and sometimes that is the most important factor, especially in our case, as a layer 2 switching solution that can also provide PoE to the Meraki MR WAPs.
Cisco Meraki MS is intuitive and allows us to easily manage 340+ satellite locations and four corporate locations. Templates, intelligent patching, and alerting are fantastic. This has drastically improved compliance and managing such a large footprint. I would continually recommend Cisco Meraki MS for any multi-site organization because of its ease of use.
High Performance and reliability have allowed for a 'set it and forget it' type installation, giving greater customer satisfaction.
The price point of the switches, while higher than other models such as HP or Dell potentially, is in line with their reliability and functionality and comes in less than Cisco much of the time.
Having a long time relationship with Adtran as a company has allowed us to quickly assist customers with their needs, saving everyone time and money.
