Likelihood to Recommend At our level, we had to optimize our 3 internet links (MPLS and LTE) with applications like O365, SAP, Microsoft CRM Dynamics and our collaborative work tools like Teams. We also had to ensure that both client workstations and servers could communicate with minimal latency with our
Microsoft Intune infrastructure.
Read full review Cisco Routers are well suited when it comes to create a meshed VPN infrastructure with all your branch offices worldwide. You can easily configure the Cisco Routers with static VPN, DMVPN or SD-WAN, which is great. You can also use a Cisco Routers as a CUBE to establish a direct routing (voice) for MS Teams.
Read full review Pros Meraki has been beautifully done for people who are actually very lean on the IT infrastructure as in resources wise. So Meraki is a very good solution to give them the simplicity on a single glass plan where they can actually have visibility over all their networks on a single glass plane by a click of button, they could actually see what's happening. They could actually do troubleshooting on the fly, including packet capture, which is such a smooth feature. Usually myself including I've been have an engineering background, all my ears packet capture, I've never seen that smooth and easy to operate that you can actually have a high level understanding or deep level depending on how much you want to go in with the click of a button. That's so beautiful. I mean everything for me Meraki is point of kind of a go ahead for everyone. Read full review Helps to separate routing information for different networks for different customers. Helps peers with service providers and Customer Networks and starts the exchange of information between them. Helps facilitate internet connectivity for enterprise networks. Helps transferring Internet or Private Data from one place to another. Read full review Cons The platform itself is very feature-rich. One of the difficulties we find is that to do things, for example, in terms of monitoring and obtaining data, it's not consistent. There are multiple interfaces to get them, but you can't get the same data through all interfaces. So you end up having to try to find either the least common denominator or we have to build our own code that then mines through all the interfaces and that becomes very problematic. The other problem we've found is that there are issues where the same amount of expected software quality isn't really there in all releases. Cisco breaks things out by like shorter or long-lived release trains. And the long-lived release trains tend to have good quality by the time you get to the second or third release within it. But then those are skips. There are like 12, 18 months skips in between those. So if you start releasing features on versions in between there practically to be safe, you have to wait until you know much later. So to be able to see new future capabilities as they come out and deploy those readily needs to improve, it needs to be much faster. Read full review Software-defined radios could be used so that both the radios could be converted into 5 GHz model to provide enhanced connectivity in network congestion scenarios. Support for low power IoT devices. Should provide more details about devices connected to the access points such as the risk score of the devices. Enhanced encryption algorithms and quick firmware upgrades. Read full review Likelihood to Renew We are extremely likely to renew, as we have been very happy with our Cisco Routers for over 10 years. Their uptime as well as stable nature makes them ideal for us, as we are an industry that cannot afford downtime. We trust our partner to recommend our next model Cisco, when the time comes.
Read full review Support Rating Fast and efficient. The only issue currently is that the support is only overseas support and not in South Africa, which causes delays in resolution for some cases. Escalating issues is quite simple and the opening of new cases from the dashboard is easy. I have never had a support issue that could not be resolved.
Read full review Alternatives Considered The Sonic wall and Cisco ASA required a lot of trial and error to get up and running. Rules and configurations were difficult to setup and were not intuative. Meraki is very ituative.
Read full review The main reason to go with Cisco Routers is reliability. Other than that most engineers are certified to operate these routers. Other reasons are good technical support, quality community and familiarity/experience within the industry of networking. It is by default product to go with in many situations.
Read full review Scalability Once your template is set up Meraki is easy to scale. Even creating the template is easy and I was able to learn enough in 4 hours to build, test, and deploy templates for our locations. Best part is you can stage your deployment by adding a unit to a template even before taking it out of the box.
Read full review Return on Investment It was mostly around logs. I mean I understand because the aim is to provide the simplified solution to the people as an end user, be it an IT manager or the oil team. So I understand where you don't have lots of tools assigned where you can actually take help from the track. But in terms of having that logging information, I think that's where it's been a bit of a kind of journey where struggling, we have been struggling there. Read full review Experience tells us that using Cisco products is always positive since the quality/price is very well distributed. They reduce energy costs and the consumption of resources, optimizing efficiency to the maximum The equipment is prepared so that all kinds of people can use them. They have higher levels of access and service. Its functionality is one of the best on the market, its unmatched response. Cisco routers provide fast access and hassle-free connectivity and are renowned for their performance. TAC's service is by far the best accessible configuration manuals Read full review ScreenShots