Cisco Cloud Services Router 1000V Series (CSR 1000V)
Score 9.4 out of 10
N/A
Cisco Cloud Services Router 1000V Series (CSR 1000V) offers routing, security, and network management as cloud services with multitenancy. The series is infrastructure agnostic and programmable across the LAN, WAN, and in the cloud.
N/A
Cisco Meraki MX
Score 9.1 out of 10
N/A
Cisco Meraki MX Firewalls is a combined UTM and Software-Defined WAN solution. Meraki is managed via the cloud, and provides core firewall services, including site-to-site VPN, plus network monitoring.
$595
per appliance
Pricing
Cisco Cloud Services Router 1000V Series (CSR 1000V)
Cisco Meraki MX
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
MX64
$595
per appliance
MX67
$695
per appliance
MX68
$995
per appliance
MX84
$1,995
per appliance
MX100
$4,995
per appliance
MX250
$9,995
per appliance
MX450
$19,995
per appliance
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Cisco Cloud Services Router 1000V Series (CSR 1000V)
Cisco Cloud Services Router 1000V Series (CSR 1000V)
Cisco Meraki MX
Likelihood to Recommend
Cisco
If you just need to do simple communication to Azure such as smb and rdp sessions then the Cisco Cloud Services Router 1000V Series is overkill. If you need to setup multiple mesh vpn connections to existing ISRs and have complicated routing with multiple protocols then Cisco Cloud Services Router makes that setup much easier and less work to maintain and troubleshoot.
It's very well suited for retail locations where you have a small footprint and it's a collapsed core design and it's connecting to a larger hub. We don't necessarily use them in our data centers just because they don't have the full capability we have. We use FTDs in our data centers, so we use a different Cisco product for that. So I would say they're really good at setting up sites quickly, getting them connected, protecting the traffic, and then they're a little weak in a data center right now.
The Cisco Meraki MX series is phenomenal at allowing us to remotely manage networks. So the devices usually act as the brain behind our client's networks, which makes it really, really easy for our team to take a look at what's going on in those client network environments, resolve any issues, and make sure that our client's networks are staying secure.
The simplicity and ease of use for the Meraki Dashboard make it an easy choice for our organization to renew our Meraki Enterprise Agreement. We will likely continue using the Meraki MC67-C, MX450, and other MX models in their catalog until we shift away from Meraki completely
Some features simply aren't there, but the ones that are there are pretty easy to use. Sometimes it is easy to get lost when trying to find the specific device you want to work on, but that's mostly due to how rarely we have to go into the interface.
Meraki MX devices support high availability (HA) configurations, which ensures minimal downtime if one device goes offline. This feature has helped us maintain a stable and reliable network, even in cases of hardware failures. ince Meraki is cloud-managed, we've noticed that the cloud infrastructure is generally highly reliable, with minimal service interruptions or downtime. This makes it easier to manage the network remotely without significant availability concerns. Meraki automatically pushes firmware updates and patches, which helps maintain system stability without requiring manual intervention. These updates are rolled out in a manner that ensures minimal disruption to service.
The interface is pretty responsive. The lower end devices are easy to overwhelm if you have a lot of throughput. Be sure the model you get is rated for the amount of traffic you will have. Overbuild if possible, otherwise you won't be fully leveraging the connection from your ISP.
I haven't ever had a bad experience with Meraki support. On the few occasions where I wasn't understanding the UI or needed some clarification about what a setting actually would do, I contacted them and they were very quickly able to provide help. Returns are simple and fast, too. We had to return a defective device one time and they shipped the replacement before we had even un-racked the one that was faulty. Unlike many other vendors, they didn't ask use to a do long list of scripted diagnostics, they just took my word for it that the device was broken and sent out a replacement immediately
great when they offered it, really tested your knowledge with hands on and see what your peers from other orgs know. glad to see that we were ahead of the curve of what our peers knew
Implementing Meraki MX devices in phases—starting with a pilot group or select branch offices—was invaluable. This allowed us to identify potential configuration issues, troubleshoot problems, and refine our setup before rolling it out company-wide. It also helped to get feedback from early users and adjust the deployment strategy accordingly. The SD-WAN capabilities in Meraki MX were essential for optimizing our WAN traffic and ensuring better application performance across various locations.
Neither product supported all the protocols we needed to allow all of our locations to route. It does add some complications to the gateway and vnet setup though. Once we retired our ISRs we were able to go to Meraki vMX and the auto-vpn setup works rather well and is much simpler than IOS configs
The Meraki Dashboard has been a lot more intuitive than CradlePoint NetCloud. We switched from CradlePoint to Cisco Meraki MX because we were already familiar with the interface which allowed us to be familiar with a single dashboard.
When I first started with my company we had various infrastructure and a mix of tech. Since going to Cisco Meraki MX we have noticed better network performance and our new sites are much easier to bring online. Users have noticed an improvement in VPN connection and getting into all our systems.
From a positive impact? Basically it allows us to set up shop very quickly. It allowed us to add sites to our network very quickly. From a negative perspective, I think the only thing is that I can see from a negative perspective is I have a preference to working with ACLI in terms of how I engage with the youth tool At the moment, the only way to actually engage with a tool is on a gui and sometimes what I'd actually like is more detailed information in terms of actual configuration that you'll actually get out of ACLI.
