Cisco to buy Meraki

NightShade1

Hello again
Yeah sorry im sure you didn't understand what i mean because my English sucks hehe but well at the end you got the idea!

Yes this is not something that everyone will use but its pretty handy at least for some clients that we got that got mobile office or small offices

For example in event like cars expo there are many stand of different car brands... some of them got this, they got with one remote AP which cost them maybe like 200 bucks and one internet connection Access to the corporate, a port to connect a IPphone(while using the same vlan of voice of yhour corporate) so you he can do calls or anything if he needs, and 3 other laptops that can connect through wireless, all with 802.1x protection.

IF you want and you got biggers Remote APS you can SEND roles to those ports for example you can set 802.1x onwired if you want, and do role derivation based on AD groups.

If you want you can plug a switch behind this remote AP and bring all the vlans of your corporate.

Like you well said this is not something everyone will use but i can tell you everytime i tell the client it can do that he goes like WOW Really??? and i show them with a small remote AP i got on my computer bag, and well how easy is to set it up if i factory default it(with a button like a linksys router)

Okay explaining about the wired solution from Aruba ill try to explain why you would want their switches.

The idea behind their switches is not competing with them... their swithces are just Access layer swithces.. knowing that those switches are NOT distribution switches neither CORE switches

Now taking that in mind.
IF you got Aruba wireless solution and you got also Aruba swithces solution you will get in one console unified the security.
You can set up switches from the wireless controller, just like you provision an AP. You can use the same roles you using on the wirelses on the wired... so you can easily deloy 802.1x on wireless and wired on the same console. The idea behind of this is unifying the administration and the security of wireless and wired on the same box. Not having like a wired administration and wireless administration separately or also the security.
It give you also the advantage of the Zero touch config, as i said before you can provision the Switch like an Access point, i mean its like a plug and play deployments...
Also now you mention that Cisco lead the wired and wireless is true on the gardner quadarnt Cisco is on the leader quadrant on the last Wired and wireless lan access infraestructure but also on that leader quadrant if you see Aruba is there... i mean if aruba is there is because its good! it does not have all the years in the market like cisco because cisco was founded in 1984 if i remenber well and aruba was founded on 2002...

Just take those things in mind... not telling you that you should change it cisco is great but as you know its not cheap, and yes its expensive than aruba.

it_consultant

If I understand what you are saying correctly, you are talking about the extra ports on the back of the wireless devices, correct? Meraki supports this function, you specific which role the extra port(s) will fill. If it is an internal port, all the same VLANs at the remote location will be available which are available to the traditional wired network.

This is important if you are hooking two sites who have line of site together. You connect the two sites with a 5GHz patch antennae and you plug in your switch to the other port on the Meraki to give wired connectivity. This works exactly the same as the GRE tunnel since the wireless P2P link is logically the same as a GRE tunnel.

Although they will likely kill the firewall and switch products, Meraki does currently offer the entire networking line which is cloud controller based. This means you can configure the Meraki switch exactly the same as you would configure the wireless access point.

Meraki Cloud Managed Switches
Meraki Cloud Managed Security Appliances

NightShade1

it_consultant wrote: »

If I understand what you are saying correctly, you are talking about the extra ports on the back of the wireless devices, correct? Meraki supports this function, you specific which role the extra port(s) will fill. If it is an internal port, all the same VLANs at the remote location will be available which are available to the traditional wired network.

This is important if you are hooking two sites who have line of site together. You connect the two sites with a 5GHz patch antennae and you plug in your switch to the other port on the Meraki to give wired connectivity. This works exactly the same as the GRE tunnel since the wireless P2P link is logically the same as a GRE tunnel.

Although they will likely kill the firewall and switch products, Meraki does currently offer the entire networking line which is cloud controller based. This means you can configure the Meraki switch exactly the same as you would configure the wireless access point.

Meraki Cloud Managed Switches
Meraki Cloud Managed Security Appliances

Yeah something liek that but im not talking about two sites how have line of site....
Im talking about a corporate site which is for example in san francisco and antoher branch site which is on chicago

DevilWAH

You are saying if you can use the AP as both a wireless device at the remote site, and as a physical wired switch. so a device plugged in to a spare port on the AP, will be on the same vlan as devices at the main site allowing for LAyer2 communication between them.

Just as you could set up a GRE tunnel on routers at both end and tunnel layer 2 traffice between them.

I am assuming it uses the secure tunnel it has to the controller at main site to tunnel the VLANS across.

NightShade1

DevilWAH wrote: »

You are saying if you can use the AP as both a wireless device at the remote site, and as a physical wired switch. so a device plugged in to a spare port on the AP, will be on the same vlan as devices at the main site allowing for LAyer2 communication between them.

Just as you could set up a GRE tunnel on routers at both end and tunnel layer 2 traffice between them.

I am assuming it uses the secure tunnel it has to the controller at main site to tunnel the VLANS across.

Yes it use the a secure tunnel just like the one he uses on the main site but inside an ipsec tunnel
so its an ipsec tunnel and inside a GRE tunnel and inside i pass the vlans.

DevilWAH

yep standard method for tunneling Layer 2.

Can you connect the AP to a second switch and allow multiply devices to tunnel back over different vlans? Or do you have to set the VLAN ID on the AP port and connect the device directly to the AP?

NightShade1

DevilWAH wrote: »

yep standard method for tunneling Layer 2.

Can you connect the AP to a second switch and allow multiply devices to tunnel back over different vlans? Or do you have to set the VLAN ID on the AP port and connect the device directly to the AP?

Okay look
You can connect the remote AP directly to the internet and on one of its ports you can connect a SWITCH
In the Remote AP you can configure for example
switchport mode trunk
switchport trunk allowed vlan add 200,300,400

and vlan 200,300,400 are central corporate vlans....
On the switch you are connecting you also configure the Vlans and also the trunk on that port just like if you were configuring a switch to switch communication?

Then on the switch you can configure on the porst whatsver you need..

I dont know if that asnwer your question?

unclerico

I think there is very little distinction between enterprise wireless vendors these days. Anything one can do the others can do as well (for the most part). The company I am consulting for uses Cisco.

What I find funny is how Aruba has evolved. Back in 2007 we were evaluating Aruba and Trapeze for our enterprise wireless. I wasn't blown away by either, but I was leaning towards Aruba (mostly because the two Trapeze SE's almost came to blows in the datacenter). Then, one day the CIO was thumbing through a trade mag and saw a company called Aerohive. We gave 'em a call and they had someone onsite with a Hivemanager and some AP's a few days later. I was truly impressed with them and when I brought it to the Aruba reps attention he literally laughed at me and ended up sending me this long list of what "only Aruba can do". I still remember him saying that the controllerless idea was a solution looking for a problem. What a tool that guy was.

Anyways, I personally love Aerohive and wouldn't recommend anything else since they have solutions for every possible configuration scenario. I'm glad that you like your solution and that it fulfills your needs. These kinds of arguments remind me of the Linux vs. Windows or VMware vs. HyperV...

it_consultant

If Meraki gets weird with Cisco-ness I might look to Aerohive.

NightShade1

it_consultant wrote: »

If Meraki gets weird with Cisco-ness I might look to Aerohive.

Take also a look to Aruba

DevilWAH

Do you work for Aruba??

NightShade1

DevilWAH wrote: »

Do you work for Aruba??

I work for Aruba partner.

I do postsales of:
1-Security
2-Routing and switches
3-Wireless
4-Windows Server(sometimes)

I do Presales
1-Wireless

And to tell you the truth from all the brands we sell the one i like the most is Aruba.

it_consultant

I am going to stick with Meraki in the short term. It seems like Cisco is interested in investing in their cloud managed strategy so it is possible that they will leave well enough alone. If they start getting crazy with outrageous SmartNet prices or trying to put IOS on everything, I am out.

phoeneous

How do you pronounce Meraki?

Is it meh-rack-ee or meh-rah-kai?

Henry is God

I was on the CMNA course at the London headquarters last week and was very impressed.

Got some free kit as well so that will keep me going for a while!