Simple, Scalable and Fully Featured
Updated March 04, 2025

Simple, Scalable and Fully Featured

Kevin Almond | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Reseller

Modules Used

  • MX64
  • MX64W
  • MX67
  • MX67W
  • MX67C
  • MX68
  • MX68W
  • MX68CW
  • MX84
  • MX100
  • MX250
  • vMX
  • MX105
  • MX95

Overall Satisfaction with Cisco Meraki MX

We currently use Cisco Meraki MX as our primary internet firewall, which is a migration from another Cisco product and chosen as we now have limited infrastructure on-prem and more in the cloud. As a UTM device, it fulfils all the business needs regarding security, visibility and manageability. It also allows our technical user base to leverage remote access VPN, both AnyConnect and L2TP clients where required. Additionally we resell and support Cisco Meraki MX at several of our customers, where they needed simplified VPN configuration and management across multiple locations, delivered via Auto-VPN and full featured security that could be managed effectively by less skilled and knowledgeable IT staff.

Pros

  • SDWAN / Auto-VPN
  • Rapid deployment to new location
  • Zero touch provisioning
  • Simple configuration
  • Full visibility of traffic ingress and egress through the MX
  • Traffic analytics
  • Utilise Cisco AnyConnect VPN Client

Cons

  • AnyConnect implementation needs to offer more bespoke configuration
  • Content Filtering reporting is not very good
  • Migration to new Dashboard has left a very mixed experience across pages
  • Improved service delivery and changes that can be completed quicker
  • Expand administration to additional team members
  • Cheaper alternative to more costly subscriptions for security features
  • Deployment times are quicker - improved time to value
Both ourselves and our customers continue to benefit from the rapid deployment timescales of Meraki MX appliances, with often zero touch provision being leveraged at remote site / office locations. Administration is also no longer restricted to just the security guy within the IT Team, it can and has been expanded out to other individuals who are now more than capable and confident to manage a Meraki MX device. Alerting through either email or now webhooks directly into a MS Teams Channel or Webex Space makes problem solving and awareness of issues even easier than it was before, you usually know before the users do that an issue has occurred and can be well down the road to remediation and service restoration before a user reports the issue.
The use of the varied alert and messaging paths has opened up better visibility of the solution and problem areas. No longer do we wait for users to log support tickets to have issues investigated, we can turn on as many alert settings as required and have them immediately fed into the likes of Webex or Teams via direct integration over webhooks. We have also created a bespoke dashboard within Zoho Creator that takes 1000's of alerts and keeps them for much longer than the native Meraki Dashboard can - which is good for trend analysis. The Zoho Creator can then decide which alert is escalate into a full blown service ticket automatically. This presents us an almost complete alert to visualisation to ticket flow. Cisco Umbrella can now be directly integrated into the MX and DNS queries checked inline. MS Entra ID is used for SAML based VPN Auth when using the Cisco Secure Client (AnyConnect).
The Meraki MX can be deployed as a single firewall/UTM appliance or can be deployed as part of a very large multi-geo / worldwide solution. The Dashboard does have limitations on the number of network and devices it can manage, but this will not present an issue for most customers, as we are talking 1000's of devices before the limits are reached.
Cisco Meraki gives a simple and unified dashboard that allows the configuration and management of all function and features, where some other vendors require additional portals to manage SDWAN as an example. A single pane of glass approach is much the preferred outcome for our support engineers as well as our customers, as it means the training costs are lower and benefits are realised much quicker than with a multi-portal management approach. Meraki really do deliver on the simplified management approach but still manage to maintain expansive security protection across the network edge and all ingress/egress traffic.

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

Yes

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

Yes

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

Yes

Did implementation of Cisco Meraki MX go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Cisco Meraki MX again?

Yes

A lean IT Team will definitely benefit from a Cisco Meraki MX deployment, as the time to deliver service is far ahead of many other vendors. For many remote site locations the MX can be sent straight to site without IT ever having to touch it in the first instance. Where the MX does not fit well is a Data centre location as an example, as here is where very granular policy and rule application is usually required, which is at odds with the Meraki vision of simplify everything. For a location where very customised and granular policy is required, deploy traditional Cisco FTD devices, where simple management of fully featured products is needed then Meraki is a great fit.

Cisco Meraki MX Feature Ratings

Firewall
8.0
Identification Technologies
8
Visualization Tools
8
Content Inspection
7
Policy-based Controls
8
Active Directory and LDAP
9
Firewall Management Console
9
Reporting and Logging
6
VPN
8
High Availability
9
Stateful Inspection
8
Proxy Server
Not Rated

Using Cisco Meraki MX

65 - We have a broad spectrum of staff that use the Meraki MX. We have admin and support staff that use the VPN capabilities of the MX, as well as support desk staff the monitor and manage the day to day usage of the product and its enabled services. Our consultants oversee new feature enablement and roll-out. All staff use the security, content and IDS features to remain protected throughout the working day.
3 - Day to day support is done via our support desk. So whilst many people can receive an alert notification it will likely be 1 of 2 people that ultimately handle the remediation of any issues. As we are a service provider we do have more technical capable staff at our disposal, but we certainly dont need that many to manage the Meraki and its focus on lean IT.
  • Perimeter security
  • Content and Threat filtering
  • Integration with Cisco Umbrella for DNS layer protection
  • Remote access solution
  • Removal of the Umbrella VA as we went full Cloud presented a problem with Umbrella integration, but the MX allows us to directly integrate Umbrella meaning we don't miss any DNS requests.
  • Allowing VPN clients to use SAML authentication into EntraID allows users to use common account credentials, thereby giving seamless remote access to the working environment.
  • Leveraging the Webhook capability of Dashboard allows us to monitor and alert on events straight into both Webex, MS Teams and even our Zoho Desk ticketing system.
  • When we expand it is likely we will take advantage of Meraki 3 clicks to setup an SDWAN
  • Meraki MX constantly feature enhancements and availability means we can take advantage of them seamlessly and quickly
  • Simple VPN configuration to connect to 3rd party organisation and services.
Meraki delivers exactly what it promised to. Simplified IT management and configuration without the need for in-depth and expensive training and dedicated resources. It has rapid feature enhancements with new features being added all the time. Admin of the product is easy and it provides end users a good user experience both in the office and when remotely working.

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