Cisco Meraki MR Wireless Access Points vs. Cisco Mobility Express (discontinued)

So I've used the Cisco Meraki MR Wireless Access Points product not just in the organization I'm working for now, but across most vertical markets in my career. So what I've found is, for instance, the range of antennas that were available for Meraki are not as comprehensive as they are with the traditional Cisco wireless, for instance. So that's one of the, but one the pros always with Meraki is it's just ease of deployment and it also has some automated features. For instance, if it starts to lose connectivity on its wired or it will automatically mesh, which can create some interesting scenarios

Incentivized

As it provides virtual WLC functionality, it has incredibly amazing built-in features that perfectly suit small to medium companies. It has the capability to manage the entire organization network seamlessly. It might be possible that it won't work smoothly and elegantly for large firms where there is a bulk amount of data bandwidth used.

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• It's cloud based, so as long as we have an internet connection, we can access it. Whenever we push a change, it's one stop like a single pane of glass to manage all our equipment. And so that's what I liked about it.

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• Easy to setup
• Less maintenance
• Less disconnection

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• It's a possibility, but I don't know because we haven't gone down that road yet for our division, but incorporating the older Cisco equipment into the Cisco Meraki Cloud and stuff, I know that I was told that we could do that. We haven't done it yet. I just don't know what products it can be done with. That would be cool. It makes it obviously much easier to manage too.

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• Honestly, I haven't found very many issues since we started using it, and I'm glad for that!

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It is a solution that works very well. It is almost like setup and forget, since the solution works. When issues occur, documentation is available with detailed steps on how to solve this problems you are facing, of course Technical Support is always ready to help. We have had instances where an Access Point fails and within 2 days we have the replacement

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To get basic functionality doesn't take long. Set up a new Meraki Dashboard activate the licenses and get internet connection for the APs and you are more or less done. The Dashboard will find your items and you're good to go.

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We have been deploying Meraki since last 8 years and even the first one deployed seems to be working fine till now!

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We are using it 24x7 and it never hangs or create problems in connectivity.

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After initial configuration and fixing minor issues with the firmware, the system worked really well, without any downtime. We were also satisfied with the throughput and range.

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We have not had any issues with the Meraki WiFi Access Point hardware but we did encounter a problem with a Meraki LAN switch that failed to power up. Upon a email into the Meraki Support, they promptly called back and we went over some quick tests to determine a power supply problem. A replacement LAN switch was sent to me the next day.

There were documents that detailed how the WiFi Access Point was to be installed and mounted. The only issue was to cable the device, we use a third party for this type of work and typically has to be performed after normal business hours. Other than that, the installation was easy.

We were more on a Cisco Wireless Controller set up, which takes a lot longer to control and that's why we've actually gone through a cloud-based product, which is very easy compared with the old traditional way that we used to have. It's more ease of software. They've got very similar features, but it's easy to set up and maintain into the future.

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Cisco Mobility Express is far better than other products. It is a renowned brand in network products, and they are reliable and efficient as compared to other products that I have used so far. It is highly recommended.

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It fits my company and these needs perfectly, but kind of like I talked about a little earlier. If you're going to get into a very high dense building or multi-building campus where you need to deploy hundreds of or thousands of these, you're going to run into complications with being able to get the network to fit within your scope of the Meraki MR. And you have to do some, they have stuff to do it, but you have to break it out. And then you're starting to do a little bit more configuring than you'd want for an easy config setup.

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• Uptime has improved significantly. The dashboard automatically keeps devices up to date by scheduling upgrades at remote times (say 2am on a Sunday)
• Swapping to Cisco Meraki MR Wireless Access Points has reduced the management overhead. No more long controller software hardware upgrades and obviously no more need for beefy central controllers.

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• It has given our IT team time back from not having to fix issues everyday with the network.
• It makes it easy for visibility of the network and allows those who are new to it to learn it quickly.

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