Cisco's Meraki MR Series is a wireless LAN solution.
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JumpCloud
Score9.3 out of 10
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JumpCloud® delivers a unified open directory platform used to securely manage identities, devices, and access across an organization. With JumpCloud, IT teams and MSPs enable users to work securely from anywhere and manage their Windows, Apple, Linux, and Android devices from a single platform.
There is no doubt that these access points are objectively some of the best in the industry. If you need reliability, stability, range, and something to "set and forget" these are an easy choice for those things alone. However, these are most appropriate in high demand, large environments where you can take advantage of the RF tuning, wireless stability, and overall robustness of the platform. Another important note is the SUPPORT as well. There are competitors that I won't mention that simply don't have the level of support and expertise for complex troubleshooting if you ever need it, and that alone counts as significant factor when considering the product too. Merak has that covered.
To wrap up, the cost for large deployment makes far more sense than at a small operation where you need something like 5 APs in a small/medium office for basic Wi-Fi needs. That includes potential cost of time spent troubleshooting future network issues too by IT personnel.
JumpCloud is least suited in situations where you have few devices, but lots of users. JumpCloud heavily focuses on the "One-User-One-Device" type of use, and does lack some of the features things like Active Directory is better suited for when having multiple users accessing one machine. Their Powershell APIs are fantastic and getting only more powerful. Lots of features are hidden behind these APIs, so admins not as familiar with Powershell would have more issues leveraging these tools. BYOD deployments are amazing, especially for macOS devices that are using Apple Business Manager and can leverage Zero Touch deployments. It is especially good at handling mixed systems, whereas other options, such as Jamf, are really suiting only for macOS, or Intune is more suited for Windows; JumpCloud managed to handle both systems well.
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.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. TR verified that a representative sample of customers was invited. More Info
User Management - The ability to control our users and set password/polices is made easy in the JC console
Device Management - Using JC each user is assigned to their own device with only the rights to do their job - When elevated rights are required, this is done simply via the JC console for the period of time required
SSO - Using JC's SAML SSO integrations we are building out our SSO offering and this is making for a much simpler daily user experience
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Internet connection dependency for management. Management is cloud-based, requiring a strong internet connection. Local management is not possible in the event of network problems or internet outages.
Limited in-depth configuration options. Some more detailed configuration settings are missing or difficult to configure, such as RF tuning and QoS. These are available in some other Cisco products.
License costs: an active license must always be present in the environment, otherwise the product won't work. It's easy to purchase, but if you're going to be expanding regularly, the costs will add up considerably. Ultimately, it's wise to factor this into your purchase.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. TR verified that a representative sample of customers was invited. More Info
SSO via OpenID - Opening up their SSO from just SAML to including OpenID (OAuth) would allow us to make more use of the service and to also incorporate it into some internal testing suites
Time Limited User Elevation - The ability to time limit a users elevation of privileges would be a great addition
Extending device management to include LPA - Least Privilege Access is becoming a bigger ask from our external auditors - Being able to do this via JC would be amazing
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
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
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. TR verified that a representative sample of customers was invited. More Info
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.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
It's simple. I like how JumpCloud keeps things simple. Similar to Apple's ecosystem, they give you what you want with some extra features and bells and whistles but it doesn't take a large instruction manual to use it. They have the support system and KB articles to back up their product and learn about a feature and how to implement it
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. TR verified that a representative sample of customers was invited. More Info
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.
I have rarely contacted support. When I have, the responses were within expected time frames, and easy to access. Community support is incredible, both from the JumpCloud representatives, and the user base community at large. The support pages on the website also are typically very well written and strike a nice balance between having the technical information needed, and also being easy to understand for the small business types that might not have as much of a technical background as an IT Admin.
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.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
The Cisco Meraki MR Wireless Access Points fare really well against HPE Aruba AP. The cost difference is minimal on the hardware although things get more expensive on support and subscription cost (on going cost). Speed and throughput seems to be better on Cisco Meraki (user feedback and experience not technically measured). User connectivity is better with HPE Aruba primarily because of the Clearpass solution on top of its generic software management.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. TR verified that a representative sample of customers was invited. More Info
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Some features would make more sense for us to be bundled by machine, instead of the user. We have fewer machines, and multiple users log into one machine, so doing something like paying per user for services like Patch Management are difficult to warrant the cost. I also feel a more complete package that includes common addon features; Patch Management and Password Manager, would be an improvement. It would also be nice if we could change packages, addons, and other billing services via self-service instead of reaching out to our account manager.
As far as I know, it's 10. I mean, because like I said, I manage stuff in the south. I have coworkers that manage it in the north. And so the scalability of it to be able to be go in and see the configurations of the ones in the north as well as they can see in the south. So across the board, it works really well for how widespread out it is.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. TR verified that a representative sample of customers was invited. More Info
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
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.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. TR verified that a representative sample of customers was invited. More Info
