Meraki MS does not have the full feature set of Catalyst switches, however, the ease of deployment and implementation in less stringent environments makes them a great option
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 …
we use both classic Cisco switches and Cisco Meraki MS switches but for differents infrastructures and different customers. Cisco Meraki switches are clearly better for large and fast deployments on non-complex environments and are very easy to maintain and update. There is …
Hands down Cisco Meraki switches beat out the competition. Yes, you have to have the licensing, but it is worth it to centrally managing them all from a "single pane of glass."
The Cisco Catalyst 9200 Series Switches are a good fit for access layer needs. Put them on the edge of your network and you will have what you need to connect a physical device to your network. I would not deploy them in places at the core of a network. They can be used in data centers as an edge connection device.
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.
We have now bought 468 switches, and we will most likely continue using this series, because it is the switch that is the cheapest for our needs. Maybe for some specific use cases, we will use the Catalyst 9300 series. Because we are more pressed on manpower, that money, we stick with what works.
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.
The functions on Cisco Catalyst 9200 Series Switches are very responsive and its notification functions are very active and reliable in producing effective new updates on any detected data threats across the entire network flow even the network speed reports are easily presented by its alert functionalities and data analytics are impressive.
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.
The positive thing is that because it has a redundant power supply, you can have users staying on for all the time. If you have a power interruption or something and you have both power supply A and B, then you're option to, you don't need users to log off or they're being cut off because you have to replace something or do something.
