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Cisco Meraki MS

Score9 out of 10

244 Reviews and Ratings

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What is Cisco Meraki MS?

Cisco offers the Meraki brand of Ethernet switches.

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Cisco Meraki MS Key Features

Learn about the best (and worst!) features Cisco Meraki MS has to offer, as determined by TrustRadius' reviewers.
Based on 244 ratings of Cisco Meraki MS's features
View all Cisco Meraki MS features

Top Performing Features

  • Switch Redundancy

    The switch follows a redundancy protocol, such as the parallel redundancy protocol (PRP) or high-availability seamless redundancy (HSR) to ensure network performance in the event of a device or power failure.

    Category average: 8.3

  • Switch Scalability

    Ability to add new switches to the network (possibly through stacking) to enable more bandwidth.

    Category average: 8.4

  • Link Aggregation (LACP)

    Allows users to combine Ethernet links, resulting in more bandwidth, better load balancing, and redundancy.

    Category average: 8.3

Areas for Improvement

  • Quality of Service (QoS)

    Enables the prioritization of traffic to ensure network performance.

    Category average: 8.2

  • Management Interface

    The Interface allows for configuration and monitoring of the devices on your network.

    Category average: 7.9

Who Buys & Uses Cisco Meraki MS

Cisco Meraki MS Reviews

What users are saying about Cisco Meraki MS.
View all Cisco Meraki MS reviews

Pros

  • Streamlined network device management via intuitive web portal
  • "Plug and play" deployment for new switches
  • Centralized cloud management from a single console

Cons

  • Limitations in advanced configuration (e.g., no CLI, stacking support)
  • Dashboard and UI could benefit from faster refresh rates and better graphics
  • Desire for more advanced features like AI-driven self-healing and broader DHCP/routing support

Cisco Meraki MS Switches - 10 Years of High Criticality IT Success

Incentivized
J Robert Burgoyne
President in Engineering at True Blade Systems, Inc. (1-10 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We have deployed Cisco Meraki MS Switches for 10+ years. We have used them in corporate environments, data center applications, and some residences. The goal is to get complete visibility into 100% of all devices on the network, and to be able to isolate and learn more about any device. Cisco Meraki MS's logging and packet sniffing are especially useful in diagnosing complex problems.

Recently we encountered a rogue DHCP server on a network with non-Cisco Meraki MS Switches. This is where an MS switch would have saved us tremendous time and effort. Prospects may balk at the cost of an MS Switch, but once you encounter an edge case problem that a less expensive Ethernet Switch is unable to help solve, you'll be that much more convinced that MS Switches are the way to go.

Pros

  • Diagnosis of edge case problems
  • Packet sniffing and data logging to solve complex problems
  • Reliable PoE power and telemetry of PoE devices

Cons

  • Cost is the only issue. Prospects may balk at the initial cost, but the reliability and ability to solve complex problems over many years can often pay for itself.

Return on Investment

  • For deployments > 1 Gbps, fiber connections are easy to deploy. Cisco tech support walked us through all considerations for new applications that deployed fiber connections to Cisco Meraki MS Switches.

Alternatives Considered

NETGEAR Ethernet Switches

Cisco Meraki MS review

Incentivized
Walter Poole
Senior IT Manager in Information Technology at Gas South District (201-500 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I have about 85 of these switches in my organization. We use it to connect different devices all across the campus.
The business problem it addresses is connectivity. We have to connect our access points to our switches, to our desktops, to our laptops. So we need that.

Pros

  • Like I've said about other Meraki products, a single pane of glass is really nice. I like that I can clone one switch to another switch, and one goes down instead of me having to manually program all the way through. I like the interface, how they can all tie together very seamlessly.

Cons

  • I can't think of any cons, but one thing I would like to see different. If I have a Cisco Meraki MS 320 and Cisco Meraki MS 450 or Cisco Meraki MS 250, any of the models, I would like to be able to clone without being the same model number. Right now, I can only clone a 320 with a 320. I would like to go on a 320 with a 450. If I'm replacing one out of a rack, I want to go to a bigger model. I don't want to have to go back and manually program each port. I would love to be able to clone the ports.

Return on Investment

  • Positive. I had to hire someone who wasn't very strong at networking. So it made it really easy with Cisco Meraki MS's interface for them to go in and make changes for me, without me having to do them myself or hire a network engineer.

Cisco Meraki MS a great choice for refreshing old network hardware fast

Incentivized
Patrick Betts
Infrastructure Support in Information Technology at Metropolitan Transportation Commission (201-500 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We currently use the Meraki MS390-MS switches as both core and access layer switches for a building management network supporting BACNet network, Video Conferencing, 4 Wi-Fi networks, security cameras, security controllers, and mandated government broadcasts.

Pros

  • Simplifies setup of new network devices
  • Provides great troubleshooting tools

Cons

  • It'd be great to see more IGP routing protocols made available such as iBGP.
  • More alerts that could be configured to trigger webhooks for things like slack alerts
  • A way to stage new firmware updates to a single switch for testing for up to 2 weeks before rolling out the update to the entire network.

Return on Investment

  • It's made configuration of new switches and bringing an entirely new network online a breeze!
  • We upgraded our C3850 fleet to the MS390s and the worked hours to configure the network were reduced by at least 70%

Government Cisco Meraki MS Review

Incentivized
Eric Kersten
Network Administrator in Information Technology at City of Fitchburg (201-500 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We are migrating to Meraki across our organization. We are hoping to be able to push some network configuration to first level support with the dashboard functionality.

Pros

  • Ease of access
  • Ease of use
  • Clean UI

Cons

  • Initial deployment has been a challenge
  • Features are still limited in comparison to IOS CLI
  • Migrating causes large outage window

Return on Investment

  • Allows us to better utilize a small IT staff
  • Allows for easy access to management from anywhere in the world
  • Simple

Alternatives Considered

Cisco IOS and Cisco Wireless LAN Controllers

Other Software Used

Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series, HPE Aruba Networking Switches

Cisco Meraki MS is Effective Efficient and Easy to Use

Incentivized
Andrew Paulsen
Manager of Information Services in Information Technology at Wisconsin Challenge Academy (51-200 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I use Cisco Meraki MS in my workspace as access switches to each of the 19 buildings on our campus. The products are super easy to setup and manage in the Meraki dashboard and have done well in powering our wireless access points and security cameras along with providing data access to workstations.

Pros

  • Web portal to manage devices is well designed and intuitive.
  • Deployment of devices through the web portal is super quick and intuitive.
  • Monitoring of the network through the online web portal is seamless
  • The ability to update firmware on the hardware is very easy and intuitive to schedule and send.

Cons

  • Add radio spectrometry in the dashboard.
  • Enhanced logs of usage by device.
  • Continue to make improvements on visuals and graphics.

Return on Investment

  • Quicker and easier setup saved time of staff in implementing.
  • Ease of use in making changes has saved staff time.
  • Ease of upgrades of devices has saved time and headaches of needing to be onsite during the updates.

Other Software Used

Veeam Data Platform, Exagrid EX Series, Microsoft 365

Cisco Meraki MS Alternatives

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