Item: Cisco Meraki Dashboard
Rating: 8
Author: Matthew Partida

Overall Satisfaction with Cisco Meraki Dashboard

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Cisco Meraki Dashboard is a system that shows all connected access points in a easy to understand and concise platform. This lets us manage wifi in a easy to use system with changes deploying across the network with ease, as well as monitor any issues or down devices without having to jump through several hoops.

Pros and Cons

Pros

Management
Deployments
Troubleshooting

Cons

Loop detection needs some work
device location telemetry data

Return on Investment

Reduced troubleshooting times
Reduced deployment times
Uniformed deployments at a click of a button

Usability

The overall GUI is very user friendly; however, some training is required to really understand the advanced features that you can use in the dashboard. It is very easy to do uniformed deployments, but if you want to do specifics to a site, then you have to understand the theories behind the mapping and deployments to really get your money's worth.

Alternatives Considered

Ubiquiti Networks UniFi

UniFi is a direct competitor to the Cisco Meraki line, and works in a similar fashion to the platform. In my experience, each of the lines have their own quirks, however in general I tend to prefer the user experience in the Cisco Meraki Dashboard line versus Ubiquiti. There are far fewer quirks that will impact production in the Cisco Meraki Dashboard line and overall user experience is smoother as long as you are a full Cisco shop while being willing to pay the premium to use the Cisco Meraki products.

Key Insights

Do you think Cisco Meraki Dashboard delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Cisco Meraki Dashboard's feature set?

Yes

Did Cisco Meraki Dashboard live up to sales and marketing promises?

I wasn't involved with the selection/purchase process

Did implementation of Cisco Meraki Dashboard go as expected?

I wasn't involved with the implementation phase

Would you buy Cisco Meraki Dashboard again?

Yes

Likelihood to Recommend

If an organization is primarily a Cisco shop, then Cisco Meraki Dashboard devices are going to be the default deployment solution. With this being said, managing the Cisco Meraki devices will almost always be on the Cisco Meraki Dashboard, as it is almost the only way to manage them. Out of band management with these devices never really makes sense to do, so it is almost a no brainer to go this route.

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