Why Meraki APs?
October 21, 2019
Why Meraki APs?
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with Cisco Meraki Wireless Access Point
The Meraki wireless AP is used by my entire organization. The biggest issue it resolved was radius (AD) authentication. Ease of management of the solution has no price.
- The ease of configuration. The Meraki portal is user friendly and APs are very easy to set up.
- Reporting details such as who is connected and what device is connected is extremely helpful in troubleshooting and securing the WiFi network.
- The ease of management. Once the APs are online, the portal shows you all the information you need to troubleshoot any issue.
- I feel the biggest thing is creating predictive heat maps. I have to use third party solutions to design a WiFi solution. It would be nice to use the same platform for the design and the solution
- The biggest return is the time, and money saved, in managing the WiFi solution at my company. Especially with credentials and connecting to WiFi. Before I installed the Meraki, the existing solution was configured with PSK for company users, and guest WiFi which was totally opened to anyone. The solution did not support any security features we needed. Once I installed the Meraki, I was able to set up Radius authentication for corporate users, and user accounts for guest who needed access to the Wifi. The Meraki solution helped us reach PCI compliance.
The Fortinet solution is really good, but can be a bit cumbersome to get working. Once you have the Fortinet configured, it works well, and also has a web portal you can use to manage the APs.
I have worked with Aerohive in the past and not a big fan of their product. The biggest issue I have with those APs are any type of updates. In many cases updates/upgrades went smoothly, however in most cases they didn't. Many times the APs were get stuck in a process, and after calling support they would tell me that the AP would need to be taken down and factory defaulted. That option is usually not feasible because of the area/location its installed. It came to the point that I stopped upgrading the firmware because I could not trust the AP would come back online
I have worked with Aerohive in the past and not a big fan of their product. The biggest issue I have with those APs are any type of updates. In many cases updates/upgrades went smoothly, however in most cases they didn't. Many times the APs were get stuck in a process, and after calling support they would tell me that the AP would need to be taken down and factory defaulted. That option is usually not feasible because of the area/location its installed. It came to the point that I stopped upgrading the firmware because I could not trust the AP would come back online
Do you think Cisco Meraki Wireless Access Point delivers good value for the price?
Yes
Are you happy with Cisco Meraki Wireless Access Point's feature set?
Yes
Did Cisco Meraki Wireless Access Point live up to sales and marketing promises?
Yes
Did implementation of Cisco Meraki Wireless Access Point go as expected?
Yes
Would you buy Cisco Meraki Wireless Access Point again?
Yes