I am an architect planning for our customers to plan their enterprise connectivity via Cisco Meraki vMX and SASE. This is for internet access for mobile users, and I am a reseller, not using the product myself. Most of our customers are manufacturers in small businesses that depend on Taiwan, also in Vietnam, and Thailand. We will recommend them to take Cisco Meraki vMX as their solution.
Cisco Meraki vMX
Cisco Systems, Inc.External reviews
External reviews are not included in the AWS star rating for the product.
Cloud connectivity has improved secure orchestration and simplified multi-site management
What is our primary use case?
What is most valuable?
The most valuable features in Cisco Meraki vMX are easy deployment, an easy-to-read dashboard for information, and automatic load balancing for two circuits in the MX. These are the most important key features for our small business customers.
I believe you can integrate Cisco Meraki vMX analytics for network performance when deploying it on any public cloud platform.
Encryption is important, and Cisco Meraki vMX supports what most customers want, such as AES 256 or 128. The product supports modern encryption functions and features, making the connection more secure, easy to deploy, and monitor.
I think the orchestration feature is beneficial.
The automated failover capabilities are very important to our customers because the IT department does not need to configure any parameters; they can switch over themselves. If such an event occurs, the system will send the customers an email to notify them when it goes down or when any device is out of order. This is very easy for the IT department.
What needs improvement?
Cisco Meraki vMX needs to improve its ability to configure complex policy-based routing. The product can only be set up via the GUI interface and cannot perform complex tasks like a Cisco router which can handle more intricate routing.
I think Cisco Meraki vMX is easy to deploy, but if customers want more complexity, they need to switch to Viptela. Cisco Meraki vMX is designed for easy deployment.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been working with Cisco Meraki vMX for only one year because this is a new solution for our company.
How are customer service and support?
I would rate Cisco Meraki technical support nine or ten.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I find the price reasonable and competitive.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
There are alternate solutions by Palo Alto and other vendors as well.
We are selling the SASE solution for our customers, mostly for mobile users, which includes Palo Alto products.
I support some of my customers who are using NG firewalls, but that depends on their requirements.
I support FortiSASE and SD-WAN, but the NG firewall is not our major solution. Mostly it is part of some side projects.
We are working with the MS series and Cisco Meraki vMX for the small business customers.
I am still working with Palo Alto products.
I am dealing with Prisma SD-WAN.
I am also dealing with firewalls like Palo Alto NG firewalls, but not that much.
I am not very familiar with the NG firewall, which is why I am hesitant about questions regarding it.
We are also reselling Fortinet products.
We are working with Fortinet FortiGate mainly.
We are working with Cisco Meraki sometimes on new projects.
What other advice do I have?
I have no idea about additional features that I would like to see in the next release to make it better.
My customers will buy it from the AWS Marketplace and Azure.
In my opinion, Cisco Meraki vMX should promote the product more because in the Taiwan market, it is not the first choice.
My overall review rating for Cisco Meraki vMX is eight.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Have worked confidently across large deployments and ensured long-term reliability for critical sectors
What is our primary use case?
The typical use cases for this solution are in the pharma and education sectors.
My biggest customer experience is with Torrent Pharma, where I think there are 700 access points and 400 to 500 switches, an L2, L3 combination.
What is most valuable?
I have used Cisco Meraki vMX dashboard's orchestration feature with this product.
The Meraki dashboard helps manage our network effectively because it is quite easy; we manage ourselves very well.
Performance-wise, there is no problem with Cisco Meraki vMX's integrated analytics for network performance, as my 70 to 80 customers use Cisco only. We do business with semi-enterprise customers, and there is no competition against Cisco except for the wireless solutions from Aruba. We find it easy to promote Cisco Meraki vMX because the centralized dashboard is there for management, and the customers accept it without any problem. From a sales point of view, it is easy to integrate, and nowadays, the 93 is also part of the Meraki desktop.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have been working with Cisco since 1999, almost 25 years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
On a scale from one to 10, I would rate the stability of this solution as eight or nine.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
On a scale from one to 10, I would rate its scalability as eight.
How are customer service and support?
Support from Cisco for Cisco Meraki vMX is available online; we can open cases on the Cisco website, and they provide the required help on the spot, including assistance with installation on-site.
I would rate Cisco support as 99% good; no one can beat Cisco support, and that is 100% sure.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
In comparison with Aruba, I find Aruba to be far better in terms of deployment, ClearPass, and everything, which is all very easy.
How was the initial setup?
We are not facing any problems, so it is not difficult to deploy Cisco Meraki vMX.
Usually, six people take part in the installation of this solution.
It depends on the customer and our manpower; we spend hardly a day or two days, maximum two days, for the general installation of Cisco Meraki vMX, depending on the size of the project and customer availability of the site.
What about the implementation team?
We are still implementing Cisco Meraki vMX.
What was our ROI?
There is a financial benefit for using Cisco Meraki vMX in the long run, especially in financial institutions.
It is financially beneficial for the organization, and it helps people follow compliance easily.
What other advice do I have?
We are working with Cisco, Meraki, and Juniper, doing the same thing. We have been in this field for over 30 years. We are a Cisco partner.
We are not working with Juniper Mist Wireless Access Points, because Juniper is a part of HP Aruba. We are currently working on the firewall and switching. We mostly work with Cisco.
I am familiar with solutions such as Cisco Meraki vMX and Cisco Meraki MR Wireless. Cisco Meraki vMX was recently launched, so we have just started working with it. Cisco Meraki vMX is good for us, with no complexity or integrated problems.
One customer is using VPN, but that is a different implementation; we do not have customers regularly using the VPN on Cisco Meraki vMX implemented by our team.
We use stacking, whether virtual or physical stacking, and there is no problem with the MX's standby capability. End-to-end encryption influences organization security through MACsec. The kind of encryption used is MACsec within the network, and across the network, they use IPsec, SSL, or IPsec.
My final rating for Cisco Meraki vMX is nine out of ten.
Manages diverse network needs with high ease and effective support
What is our primary use case?
We are training companies and recommend Cisco Meraki vMX for every company doing cloud solutions and using Meraki in their infrastructure.
In the past, it was mainly for smaller companies, but now we implement it with bigger companies for their smaller locations.
How has it helped my organization?
The administration was becoming easier.
What is most valuable?
We primarily deal with the SD-WAN feature.
Cisco Meraki vMX offers sufficient features for most customers. It is very easy to handle and proves very efficient.
The main advantages are the visibility it provides and the ease of administration.
We are very happy with the solution. It is easy to manage and administrate.
What needs improvement?
It is not the strongest security solution, so if you want to have next-generation firewall features, you always need an additional component.
For how long have I used the solution?
2018
What other advice do I have?
The solution can be implemented successfully. We are using this product ourselves and would recommend it to others.
The interface is excellent, with no other competitor doing it better.
The pricing is affordable and reasonable.
We serve as both a customer and partner.
This review rates Cisco Meraki vMX as 10 out of 10.
Waiting for the Native AWS TansitGateway integration
Capable product, but after 3 years still waiting for the native AWA TransitGateway integration (using E.g. GRP/IGMP), the current solution with a Lambda function and writing to a local route table is not sufficient
Easy to deploy and use
Easy to deploy and use, it is good to have a VPN tunnel from MX on-premise to the cloud.