Will there be a future in networking with Meraki?

So i've recently started a new job as a system support analyst. This company currently outsources a lot of their IT departments such as there networking, and security. They've had a lot of issues with various outsourcing companies and are now trying to bring it in house.

However they are purchasing Cisco meraki devices for everything, these things offer so many features and are so simple to implement, it's really pretty cool.

I currently have a stack of Cisco equipment to study with trying to earn my CCNA but with devices like the Meraki line it seems like network engineers will be a very small niche market in the future. After all, the Meraki units appear to be simple enough to where anyone with even a network+ knowledge level could configure an enterprise, this would be much cheaper for the companies and would pay for itself by allowing a company to pay employees less. Less complex equipment = less skilled employees = less pay

Am I missing something? Just looking at the Meraki website, it looks like a bunch of pretty big corporations already use meraki.

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Comments

EV42TMAN

At work we sell merakis to some of our larger clients and they are great. I would worry about network engineers becoming a niche market/career because yes merakis can do a lot and they present it in an easy to use web gui, but some one has to be there to configure everything on the back end. Also the meraki pricing structure and licensing makes it difficult for everyone who would want one to get one. At work we sell the MR-16 models because the MR-12s aren't worth it and after the price of the unit and the 1 year licensing you're over $1000 and that's just for 1 unit.

matai

I've been using Meraki equipment for over a year; MX90s, MS42Ps, MR24s etc..

I really like it and think it's what the future of networking will be. But every old school networking guy that comes by just hates the stuff.

I still think Meraki has some work to do, they don't offer every solution our mid-sized company needs for networking, we're supplementing with some Juniper gear.

ande0255

I agree that a bulk of the work of Meraki's is deployment, but beyond that the only tickets I ever see on them is customers asking questions about the functionality of the GUI.

The Meraki's took our jerbs!

brfitzp

Kind of a bummer i guess, but this is how all technologies work. In ten years from now I'd imagine most if not all corporations will have switched to this or something similar and it will walk you through the entire installation from scratch so next to no knowledge is required.

JaneDoe

I hate Cisco's IOS user interface, and I like Bash and other command shells that make sense. There is so much in IOS that is intentionally difficult, to the point one has to ask "why?!?!" and the only possible answer was job security for CCNAs. The real challenge of networking shouldn't be learning the Cisco command line, it should be understanding how the system works under the hood.

When I got my first cisco router it drove me crazy that I couldn't do things that were easy on a Linksys or DDWRT router (like manually setting IP addresses for a Mac address). Now I have my CCNA, and I'm glad Cisco finally fixed their interface so people can use it without studying for a while first. Understating how to work with Meraki still requires understanding how networks work, and how not to break them. To troubleshoot Meraki issues you still have to understand what's going on under the hood, so I don't think it will kill jobs, just make life easier and more efficent.

networker050184

The simpler something is the less complex setups you can do with it. If it's set and forget you lose all the customization and features the large enterprise environments need. Stuff like this is nothing new.

RouteMyPacket

networker050184 wrote: »

The simpler something is the less complex setups you can do with it. If it's set and forget you lose all the customization and features the large enterprise environments need. Stuff like this is nothing new.

Exactly!

ande0255

Why do you hate working on the CLI? Do you just not like studying? If everything were GUI's that required a quick lookup on google to configure with no previous knowledge, that would greatly narrow the networking field.

JaneDoe

If I didn't like working with the CLI and looking up things I didn't know, I wouldn't have gotten my CCNA after that. I stand behind that Cisco's interface has needed modernization, and couldn't have kept it's 1980s feel forever. It's it's silly to fear that modernization instead of learning to take advantage of it.

ande0255

Sorry I reread my post and felt I came off as sort of a turd with the "Do you just not like studying?" I meant more are you just trying not to get any more certs that involve CLI.

I personally like the feel of working in the CLI over GUI's for ASA's / routers / switches, but am really thankful for the GUI interfaces for the wireless and VoIP platforms. I hope the current industry standards stay on their dominant interfaces into the future for awhile, as I would hate to see the CLI wiped out by GUI's over the next 5-10 years, but that's more just a preference of working with them to stay sharp for Cisco exams.

JaneDoe

I think CLIs will be around for a long time especially in the networking world because it's a waste of resources to run a GUI on a router. Personally, I plan to make my next cert the RHCSA, which will involve plenty of CLI.

Cisco has a problem when a person who hasn't been trained in Cisco equipment upgrades to Cisco from their consumer line, and has to spend an hour reading documentation to do things that used to take five minuets on consumer routers. A lot of smaller organizations can't afford, and don't need a full time networking professional, and the organizations that do need a full time networking person will still need them. As someone who works at a shop that doesn't need a full time networking pro, having networking tasks take less time than they would otherwise is a big time saver.

Magic Johnson

ande0255 wrote: »

Sorry I reread my post and felt I came off as sort of a turd with the "Do you just not like studying?" I meant more are you just trying not to get any more certs that involve CLI.

I personally like the feel of working in the CLI over GUI's for ASA's / routers / switches, but am really thankful for the GUI interfaces for the wireless and VoIP platforms. I hope the current industry standards stay on their dominant interfaces into the future for awhile, as I would hate to see the CLI wiped out by GUI's over the next 5-10 years, but that's more just a preference of working with them to stay sharp for Cisco exams.

Won't happen, just look at Microsoft. The king of the GUI. They are pushing server OS with no GUI just pure powershell CLI, and recommend it for 2012. The future is not GUI, it is CLI. Funny that, eh? We're almost going through the whole big phone > little phone > big phone cycle again.

JaneDoe

I wouldn't be surprised if they added a command line to Meraki. Meraki does a lot more than make managing routers easier, it's great for managing multiple routers simultaneously. With a CLI it could act like Puppet for Cisco equipment.

joehalford01

I think Meraki is on to something big, licensing is way to high at this point though. I'm planning a standardized deployment of WAN devices to connect all of our sites together and my conclusion is that Meraki is out simply because we can't afford $5,000 a year in licensing. It's just crazy. (for reference I was looking at the advanced security licensing for their security appliances)

So no, I don't see Meraki taking all the jobs, there still needs to be some configuration. You just don't need to be a CCNA.

Jon_Cisco

Post like this should just remind everyone that the world is going to keep changing. With or without you the technology will evolve. That does not mean there will be no jobs just that the work will be different.