Meraki
What is Meraki?
Meraki: All of the reliability, none of the complexity
Meraki is the market leader in cloud-managed networking. This provides a simple yet powerful single-pane-of-glass, with a multitude of features only previously accessible to enterprises.
BENEFITS
Why Cisco Meraki for Cloud-Managed Networking?
Automatic Updates: In order to stay secure, updates are a constant churn for IT. Meraki does this in an entirely automated fashion without any involvement besides scheduling the window.
Simplification: Enterprise networking used to automatically means complexity. Meraki simplifies networking by providing the most used 75% of features in an easy manner, and eliminating the 25% that most organizations don’t need (internally, we call this 25% the “Nerd knobs”).
Zero-Touch Deployment: Meraki also has a zero-touch deployment model. If you’re deploying to a wide area and don’t have engineering skills for every device installation, you can preconfigure the new device in the portal, and as long as the device can reach the internet upon plug-in, it downloads and deploys its config from the cloud controller.
Management: All diverse devices (Switching, Wireless, Firewalls, Cameras, and Sensors) are managed and monitored cohesively in one cloud portal. Moreover, enterprise features such as NetFlow, automatic mapping, etc, are all automatically usable via the portal without any customer installations whatsoever.
Support: Meraki has true 24×7 phone support, unlike some competitors.
WHAT TO EXPECT
Scalable and Secure Network Management for a Wide Range of Environments
Cisco is well known for the reliability of its equipment. At the time of this writing, Cisco is beginning to parts of its access layer (wireless & switching) as Meraki devices, simply by changing a SKU and software. Cisco Meraki offers a wide range of hardware solutions designed to simplify network management through cloud-based control. Here are some key hardware products:
Meraki Switching
Meraki switching provides all the features needed by an access switch, but with none of the complexity. Day to day maintenance can easily be managed by tier 1 staff without special training.
Meraki Wireless
In our opinion, this is Meraki’s strongest product line. It completely eliminates the need for an on-premises controller, and the maintenance and complexity that comes along with it. The access points include all major deployment models, internal and external, and all major antenna types.
Meraki Firewalls
Meraki firewalls are security with an easy button. Most major security features are enabled with no extra configuration.
Meraki Firewalls also have a high performance, yet simple, SD-WAN feature set. (link out to SDWAN page, coming soon)
Cameras
Meraki offers a wide variety of cameras for different use cases. All cameras have both a local storage, as well as cloud storage and control. This allows them to work while their internet connection is down – one of our customers actually uses them on a moving vehicle that goes out of network range every day and it works fantastic.
Sensors
Meraki offers a simple, yet powerful set of sensors, including water, temperature and humidity, as well as others. These are plug-and-play and give an easy way to monitor your datacenter – be it Meraki powered or otherwise.
Analytics
When the data is uploaded to the cloud, powerful analytics are available including facial recognition and motion search – searching spans of time for specific movement in certain sub-areas of the frame. Moreover, all data can be analyzed via API, so 3rd party software make the solution more powerful every day.