Cisco Meraki SD-WAN vs Cisco Routers

Likelihood to Recommend

Cisco Meraki SD-WAN can be adapted to any type of scenario. Everything depends on the needs of the business and the complexity in terms of routing and treatment of links, but nevertheless, where it is best adapted is for the retail and hospitality sector. Where I would not recommend it is for service provider scenarios or where it is required to have [...] more granular control of the quality of the service.

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Verified User

Consultant in Engineering

Information Technology & Services Company, 201-500 employees

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Cisco has a very easy CLI and most importantly it is known to most network engineers. There is a huge possibility that Cisco solutions are available over the Internet for a particular problem or a use case. Cisco has been improving ever since, however, Cisco can improve in areas such as rollback or error checking mechanism during the configuration, Juniper Networks Routers has done a great job in this area. Cisco is well suited for enterprise environments, however, for Service Provider Networks there are many options available.

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Verified User

Engineer in Information Technology

Computer Networking Company, 10,001+ employees

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Pros

The natting function works really well. Even if you are behind a router with NAT, it still translates the traffic.
Security is a big benefit as you can define that only certain elements go across the VPN (SD-WAN).

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Reon Smith

Technical Operations Manager

Turrito Networks (Pty) LtdInformation Technology & Services, 51-200 employees

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Cisco routers offer networks for the WAN, the LAN and the cloud include advanced analytics, optimization security incorporated with them you can have a comprehensive and proven solution.
They are well designed to support coherent optics to drive the convergence of optical layers, as well as systems that offer lower power consumption
They are very reliable for networks that are constantly growing traffic with fixed or modular systems that allow handling large traffic flows
They are quite friendly and easy-to-use computers on their different platforms, whether ios, ios xe, XR

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Jose Manuel Castillo

Post Sales and Network Engineer / Southern Cone

LogicalisTelecommunications, 201-500 employees

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Cons

Customized, esoteric configurations were very hard to get connected and configured.
We had hoped to configure all sites filtering in one place, but each site has to be configured separately. this is prohibitive with a large number of sites.
Network visibility does not work as well as I would like.
The MX appliances do not work well with voice VLAN when using the appliances as a small office router/switch.

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Verified User

Manager in Information Technology

Mental Health Care Company, 201-500 employees

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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.

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Ravinder Beniwal

Sr. Consultant

UnitedLexLegal Services, 1001-5000 employees

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Pricing Details

General

Free Trial

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Free/Freemium Version

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Premium Consulting/Integration Services

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Entry-level set up fee?

No

Starting Price

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General

Free Trial

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Free/Freemium Version

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Premium Consulting/Integration Services

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Entry-level set up fee?

No

Starting Price

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Support Rating

Cisco Meraki SD-WAN 8.1

Based on 4 answers

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.

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Reon Smith

Technical Operations Manager

Turrito Networks (Pty) LtdInformation Technology & Services, 51-200 employees

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No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

Alternatives Considered

Cisco Meraki SD-WAN is a way better option due to the fact that there is only one point of management and the way how you can integrate the entire network. A very important focus point is the security of the network from the beginning to the end. The visibility of the traffic and the way you can trace any failure and report it

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ILEANA COLMENTER

Regional Account Manager - Hospitality

Connext (by Migesa)Telecommunications, 201-500 employees

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Cisco routers are great and are the industry standard. They have proven their ability to last and [continually] provide support for their devices. You can go into a lot of IT closets and see old Cisco switches and routers. Why? because they are workhorses and they last. Their compatibility [with] other systems and hardware makes them hard to beat.

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Shaun Stockton

Security Systems Analyst

Council Bluffs Community School DistrictEducation Management, 501-1000 employees

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Scalability

Cisco Meraki SD-WAN 9.7

Based on 10 answers

Because [Cisco] Meraki SD-WAN has fulfilled the required functionality with the easy deployment of the configuration of new sites and growth, in addition to one of the integrations that Meraki has in general as a platform and the centralized management of everything through a single Dashboard. [...] The best thing is that [Cisco] Meraki SD-WAN is included from the enterprise licensing of the MX.

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Ruben Lara

Ingeniero Preventa

MigesaTelecommunications, 51-200 employees

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No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic