Meraki Contact
Please contact me off list regarding the Meraki dashboard. -- Dan White BTC Broadband Network Admin Lead Ph 918.366.0248 (direct) main: (918)366-8000 Fax 918.366.6610email: dwh...@olp.net http://www.btcbroadband.com
Re: Meraki
On Tue, Nov 26, 2013 at 8:44 AM, Ray Soucy r...@maine.edu wrote: Can confirm the current ER Lite is a plastic enclosure. But for $ 100 I can definitely look past that. At that price point I'm not complaining. However I do have a preference. ;) And I do think that the metal cases are a better design - sturdier and likely better heat dissipation. Also, most of the UBNT distributers seem to be very knowledgeable about the product line, so I'm sure they would know if you asked them :-) Our rep had to do some digging... He managed to tell me that the ERLite now has a metal case. He did not tell me whether they have any with metal enclosures. But that's probably hard for them to say though. We've been running XORP internally for about 100+ CPE devices (actually the ones we were looking at Vyatta as a replacement for). In the end I think that moving to Quagga was a good thing for Vyatta as XORP doesn't have a very active developer community. XORP releases since 1.6 have been a forked code base that eventually became XORP 1.8. It's very touchy, and requires quite a bit of operational experience to know what will cause it to crash and what won't. The big thing you get with XORP that you don't with Quagga is multicast routing, and a more active community. I've been really interested in BIRD [0] as well, but haven't had a chance to try it out. BIRD is on my list too. Back to UBNT, though. The ER makes use of a lot of non-free code (not so great), but it's to facilitate hardware acceleration (very nice). A lot of functionality for IPv4 and IPv6 are both implemented in hardware, including not just forwarding and NAT, but also regex matching for DPI. It's how they can get so much PPS for such a modest piece of hardware. I believe the chips they use are from Cavium [1], but I could be mistaken. [0]. http://bird.network.cz/ [1]. http://www.cavium.com/ Thanks for the informative discussion, Ray! And others :) -- ---~~.~~--- Mike // SilverTip257 //
Re: Meraki
Can confirm the current ER Lite is a plastic enclosure. But for $ 100 I can definitely look past that. Also, most of the UBNT distributers seem to be very knowledgeable about the product line, so I'm sure they would know if you asked them :-) We've been running XORP internally for about 100+ CPE devices (actually the ones we were looking at Vyatta as a replacement for). In the end I think that moving to Quagga was a good thing for Vyatta as XORP doesn't have a very active developer community. XORP releases since 1.6 have been a forked code base that eventually became XORP 1.8. It's very touchy, and requires quite a bit of operational experience to know what will cause it to crash and what won't. The big thing you get with XORP that you don't with Quagga is multicast routing, and a more active community. I've been really interested in BIRD [0] as well, but haven't had a chance to try it out. Back to UBNT, though. The ER makes use of a lot of non-free code (not so great), but it's to facilitate hardware acceleration (very nice). A lot of functionality for IPv4 and IPv6 are both implemented in hardware, including not just forwarding and NAT, but also regex matching for DPI. It's how they can get so much PPS for such a modest piece of hardware. I believe the chips they use are from Cavium [1], but I could be mistaken. [0]. http://bird.network.cz/ [1]. http://www.cavium.com/ On Mon, Nov 25, 2013 at 6:47 PM, SilverTip257 silvertip...@gmail.comwrote: Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2013 09:32:10 -0500 From: Ray Soucy r...@maine.edu To: Rob Seastrom r...@seastrom.com Cc: NANOG nanog@nanog.org Subject: Re: Meraki Message-ID: calftrnppbqlhrrdkmnt1nz8wi0k3b6kemt9tbgns-wfrhqs...@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 It looks like Brocade has swapped out Quagga with IP Infusion's non-free version, ZebOS. They also decided to abandon the FOSS Vyatta Core project. A number of years back it was interesting to see Vyatta switch from XORP [0] to Quagga. I found out quite a while after they made the move. Bummer. This move by Brocade is unfortunate. It's really unfortunate, as the FOSS project is the only reason I was interested in paying the licensing. It was attractive to have Vyatta Core as a no-cost option for small things, and the subscription edition for higher visibility devices. Now that they've moved away from having any FOSS project, I'm not really inclined to invest in the product, I'm sure there are others who feel the same way. There is a group of people who were active in the Vyatta community trying to get a fork of it going under the name VyOS, http://www.vyos.net/ Thanks for pointing out VyOS. As far as Ubiquiti, it looks like about 2 years ago they actually hired a few people from Vyatta, Inc. to work on EdgeOS. So development of EdgeOS has continued [and likely will continue] independently, though it looks like at least a few people from UBNT are interested in seeing VyOS happen and participating on their own time. I know one of the early goals for VyOS is to get the documentation up on their Wiki and have a release of the current Vyatta Core with the name swapped out as a starting point. For those of you that purchased EdgeRouter Lite (ERLite-3) [2] units recently, do they come in plastic enclosure or the steel enclosure like the EdgeRouter PoE (ERPoe-5) [3] units? We got a few of each in at the office at different times (first ERL and later ERPoe). Just curious. I guess I'm spoiled ... I like the metal case much better than the plastic ones. Once I saw the case of the PoE model and saw the new pictures [4] for the ERL on Ubiquiti's site I've been holding out purchasing an ERL for my home. I should bug our distributor, but I doubt they'd know since they aren't opening the boxes prior to shipment. Although a commercial alternative, Mikrotik hardware (ex: RB750GL [1]) and OS is attractive. It appears all Mikrotik integrated solutions include some sort of enclosure (see www.routerboard.com). The CLI takes some getting used to, but the syntax makes sense after a while. ;) There's also a webui called webfig and a Windows client called Winbox. I really hope the VyOS project can get off the ground. If any developers familiar with maintaining Debian-based distributions are on-list, I know the project is looking for people to help. +1 I hope VyOS project succeeds. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XORP [1] http://routerboard.com/RB750GL [2] http://www.ubnt.com/media/product/edgemax/hardware-overview/edgerouter-lite-1.jpg [3] http://www.ubnt.com/media/product/edgemax/hardware-overview/edgerouter-poe-1.jpg [4] http://www.ubnt.com/edgemax#EdgeMAXhardware -- ---~~.~~--- Mike // SilverTip257 // -- Ray Patrick Soucy Network Engineer University of Maine System T: 207-561-3526 F: 207-561-3531 MaineREN, Maine's Research and Education Network www.maineren.net
Re: Meraki
Ray Soucy r...@maine.edu writes: Can confirm the current ER Lite is a plastic enclosure. I got mine almost a year ago, and mine is plastic too. But for $ 100 I can definitely look past that. Likewise. I believe the chips they use are from Cavium [1], but I could be mistaken. The bootloader output agrees with you :) -r
Re: Meraki
It looks like Brocade has swapped out Quagga with IP Infusion's non-free version, ZebOS. They also decided to abandon the FOSS Vyatta Core project. It's really unfortunate, as the FOSS project is the only reason I was interested in paying the licensing. It was attractive to have Vyatta Core as a no-cost option for small things, and the subscription edition for higher visibility devices. Now that they've moved away from having any FOSS project, I'm not really inclined to invest in the product, I'm sure there are others who feel the same way. There is a group of people who were active in the Vyatta community trying to get a fork of it going under the name VyOS, http://www.vyos.net/ As far as Ubiquiti, it looks like about 2 years ago they actually hired a few people from Vyatta, Inc. to work on EdgeOS. So development of EdgeOS has continued [and likely will continue] independently, though it looks like at least a few people from UBNT are interested in seeing VyOS happen and participating on their own time. I know one of the early goals for VyOS is to get the documentation up on their Wiki and have a release of the current Vyatta Core with the name swapped out as a starting point. I really hope the VyOS project can get off the ground. If any developers familiar with maintaining Debian-based distributions are on-list, I know the project is looking for people to help. On Sun, Nov 24, 2013 at 8:33 PM, Rob Seastrom r...@seastrom.com wrote: Ray Soucy r...@maine.edu writes: Pricing just popped up for the new EdgeRouter PRO last night and I was pretty blown away: $360 For a device with 2 SFP ports, and 2M PPS. That is music to my ears since we do a lot of dark fiber around the state even for smaller locations. I'm pretty excited to get one of these and see how they perform. Me too... Will probably pony up for one as soon as I can. I haven't tried out their software in a more than trivial configuration, and haven't gotten IPv4 policy routing working (though I understand it's in there now). An ER-Lite tunnels IPv6 fine, haven't tried it with PD... I feel like I'm at the risk for becoming a UBNT fanboy. Does anyone have any qualified horror stories about EdgeMAX or UniFi? Everything I've been able to find has been for nonsense configurations like complaining about trying to to OSPF over WiFi ... Who does that? They are an unmitigated disaster at hitting dates and calibrating expectations. The EdgeRouter Pro has been on their web site for well over a year. The EdgeRouter Carrier (with 10ge SFP+) has disappeared from their web site altogether. I'm concerned about the Vyatta CLI docs and their continuing availability. Someone from Brocade should make some public statements to set our collective minds at ease. That said I've been reasonably happy with the UBNT stuff (mostly older outdoor gear) that I've bought over the past several years. It's held up well. Just don't count on the availability of anything that you can't order up from your favorite VAR and have it show up in the FedEx. -r -- Ray Patrick Soucy Network Engineer University of Maine System T: 207-561-3526 F: 207-561-3531 MaineREN, Maine's Research and Education Network www.maineren.net
Re: Meraki
Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2013 09:32:10 -0500 From: Ray Soucy r...@maine.edu To: Rob Seastrom r...@seastrom.com Cc: NANOG nanog@nanog.org Subject: Re: Meraki Message-ID: calftrnppbqlhrrdkmnt1nz8wi0k3b6kemt9tbgns-wfrhqs...@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 It looks like Brocade has swapped out Quagga with IP Infusion's non-free version, ZebOS. They also decided to abandon the FOSS Vyatta Core project. A number of years back it was interesting to see Vyatta switch from XORP [0] to Quagga. I found out quite a while after they made the move. Bummer. This move by Brocade is unfortunate. It's really unfortunate, as the FOSS project is the only reason I was interested in paying the licensing. It was attractive to have Vyatta Core as a no-cost option for small things, and the subscription edition for higher visibility devices. Now that they've moved away from having any FOSS project, I'm not really inclined to invest in the product, I'm sure there are others who feel the same way. There is a group of people who were active in the Vyatta community trying to get a fork of it going under the name VyOS, http://www.vyos.net/ Thanks for pointing out VyOS. As far as Ubiquiti, it looks like about 2 years ago they actually hired a few people from Vyatta, Inc. to work on EdgeOS. So development of EdgeOS has continued [and likely will continue] independently, though it looks like at least a few people from UBNT are interested in seeing VyOS happen and participating on their own time. I know one of the early goals for VyOS is to get the documentation up on their Wiki and have a release of the current Vyatta Core with the name swapped out as a starting point. For those of you that purchased EdgeRouter Lite (ERLite-3) [2] units recently, do they come in plastic enclosure or the steel enclosure like the EdgeRouter PoE (ERPoe-5) [3] units? We got a few of each in at the office at different times (first ERL and later ERPoe). Just curious. I guess I'm spoiled ... I like the metal case much better than the plastic ones. Once I saw the case of the PoE model and saw the new pictures [4] for the ERL on Ubiquiti's site I've been holding out purchasing an ERL for my home. I should bug our distributor, but I doubt they'd know since they aren't opening the boxes prior to shipment. Although a commercial alternative, Mikrotik hardware (ex: RB750GL [1]) and OS is attractive. It appears all Mikrotik integrated solutions include some sort of enclosure (see www.routerboard.com). The CLI takes some getting used to, but the syntax makes sense after a while. ;) There's also a webui called webfig and a Windows client called Winbox. I really hope the VyOS project can get off the ground. If any developers familiar with maintaining Debian-based distributions are on-list, I know the project is looking for people to help. +1 I hope VyOS project succeeds. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XORP [1] http://routerboard.com/RB750GL [2] http://www.ubnt.com/media/product/edgemax/hardware-overview/edgerouter-lite-1.jpg [3] http://www.ubnt.com/media/product/edgemax/hardware-overview/edgerouter-poe-1.jpg [4] http://www.ubnt.com/edgemax#EdgeMAXhardware -- ---~~.~~--- Mike // SilverTip257 //
Re: Meraki
On Nov 25, 2013, at 9:32 AM, Ray Soucy r...@maine.edu wrote: It looks like Brocade has swapped out Quagga with IP Infusion's non-free version, ZebOS. They also decided to abandon the FOSS Vyatta Core project. It's really unfortunate, as the FOSS project is the only reason I was interested in paying the licensing. It was attractive to have Vyatta Core as a no-cost option for small things, and the subscription edition for higher visibility devices. Now that they've moved away from having any FOSS project, I'm not really inclined to invest in the product, I'm sure there are others who feel the same way. There is a group of people who were active in the Vyatta community trying to get a fork of it going under the name VyOS, http://www.vyos.net/ As far as Ubiquiti, it looks like about 2 years ago they actually hired a few people from Vyatta, Inc. to work on EdgeOS. So development of EdgeOS has continued [and likely will continue] independently, though it looks like at least a few people from UBNT are interested in seeing VyOS happen and participating on their own time. I know one of the early goals for VyOS is to get the documentation up on their Wiki and have a release of the current Vyatta Core with the name swapped out as a starting point. I really hope the VyOS project can get off the ground. If any developers familiar with maintaining Debian-based distributions are on-list, I know the project is looking for people to help. Interesting to read. I have two Vyatta SE routers running on a small ISP network which have been performing flawless right up until I upgraded to 6.6 and then one of the routers started randomly dropping some BGP sessions once every few days or a week and then the entire BGP process hangs after a couple weeks. The other router, with identical hardware and software, has had nary an issue. It just keeps chugging along (It'll probably go down in a big show of smoke and flames tonight right about the time I fall asleep). Vyatta support hasn't been able to make heads or tails of this as of yet. The affected box had no issue prior to the upgrade. Only a reboot has been able to get the router to function properly again. I've also since upgraded the affected router to 6.6R3 at the advice of Vyatta TAC. So far it shows a similar result. Other services stay running, such as OSPF and OSPFv3, and it still routes packets. It seems to otherwise work fine. Has anyone else had strange issues with Vyatta 6.6? Ryan Wilkins
Re: Meraki
On 13-11-23 10:47 PM, Eric C. Miller wrote: I'm using an EdgeRouter lite in a deployment for a WISP, and it's holding up very nice. It's only passing 40-50Mbps of basic OSPF routing, but no complaints thus far for the performance. I've heard that once you start adding in the services and rules, you really start to see the PPS drop, but I haven't RFC 2544 or EtherSam tested it yet. Right now, I'm waiting for the GUI to get more development before we move further with them. Being Vyatta under the hood, you can do just about anything, but the helpdesk techs don't understand CLI. Kudos on the IPv6 GUI support out of the box. +1 on the EdgeRouter. I haven't regularly pushed one past 100M, but over the past 9 months all they have done is act boring, which is exactly what I want network equipment to do. PPS will be affected more by packet filtering rules than by services. From: Ray Soucy [mailto:r...@maine.edu] I'm very impressed so far, it doesn't have all the bells and whistles of Cisco setup, sure, but I'm pretty shocked at the level of functionality here and the ease of having APs use an off-site controller (they all phone home over TCP so no VPN or port forwarding is required). The UniFi units are awesome. What they lack in terms of bells and whistles they make up for with price and ease of setup. the 2.4GHz-only units aren't great for areas with a high noise floor, but then again not many 2.4GHz devices are. I feel like I'm at the risk for becoming a UBNT fanboy. Does anyone have any qualified horror stories about EdgeMAX or UniFi? Everything I've been able to find has been for nonsense configurations like complaining about trying to to OSPF over WiFi ... Who does that? Biggest downside I can find is the use of non-standard PoE injectors for the 2.4GHz-only units. At $250 for a 3-pack, it's pretty easy to overlook that. The dual band 802.11ac units (Broadcom based, most of the other gear is Atheros based) don't feel as reliable as the other gear. Gut feeling, not anything I can measure. -- Looking for (employment|contract) work in the Internet industry, preferably working remotely. Building / Supporting the net since 2400 baud was the hot thing. Ask for a resume! ispbuil...@gmail.com
Re: Meraki
Ray Soucy r...@maine.edu writes: Pricing just popped up for the new EdgeRouter PRO last night and I was pretty blown away: $360 For a device with 2 SFP ports, and 2M PPS. That is music to my ears since we do a lot of dark fiber around the state even for smaller locations. I'm pretty excited to get one of these and see how they perform. Me too... Will probably pony up for one as soon as I can. I haven't tried out their software in a more than trivial configuration, and haven't gotten IPv4 policy routing working (though I understand it's in there now). An ER-Lite tunnels IPv6 fine, haven't tried it with PD... I feel like I'm at the risk for becoming a UBNT fanboy. Does anyone have any qualified horror stories about EdgeMAX or UniFi? Everything I've been able to find has been for nonsense configurations like complaining about trying to to OSPF over WiFi ... Who does that? They are an unmitigated disaster at hitting dates and calibrating expectations. The EdgeRouter Pro has been on their web site for well over a year. The EdgeRouter Carrier (with 10ge SFP+) has disappeared from their web site altogether. I'm concerned about the Vyatta CLI docs and their continuing availability. Someone from Brocade should make some public statements to set our collective minds at ease. That said I've been reasonably happy with the UBNT stuff (mostly older outdoor gear) that I've bought over the past several years. It's held up well. Just don't count on the availability of anything that you can't order up from your favorite VAR and have it show up in the FedEx. -r
Re: Meraki
On 11/24/13, 7:43 AM, Mike wrote: On 13-11-23 10:47 PM, Eric C. Miller wrote: I'm using an EdgeRouter lite in a deployment for a WISP, and it's holding up very nice. It's only passing 40-50Mbps of basic OSPF routing, but no complaints thus far for the performance. I've heard that once you start adding in the services and rules, you really start to see the PPS drop, but I haven't RFC 2544 or EtherSam tested it yet. Right now, I'm waiting for the GUI to get more development before we move further with them. Being Vyatta under the hood, you can do just about anything, but the helpdesk techs don't understand CLI. Kudos on the IPv6 GUI support out of the box. +1 on the EdgeRouter. I haven't regularly pushed one past 100M, but over the past 9 months all they have done is act boring, which is exactly what I want network equipment to do. PPS will be affected more by packet filtering rules than by services. As the product software has matured, the ER Lite has gained quite a few performance improvements - just keep it updated as new versions come out. Recent example is the HW VLAN acceleration stuff. I have two, one in service the other as a spare. For the price, hard to go wrong. -- Brielle Bruns The Summit Open Source Development Group http://www.sosdg.org/ http://www.ahbl.org
RE: Meraki
I'm using an EdgeRouter lite in a deployment for a WISP, and it's holding up very nice. It's only passing 40-50Mbps of basic OSPF routing, but no complaints thus far for the performance. I've heard that once you start adding in the services and rules, you really start to see the PPS drop, but I haven't RFC 2544 or EtherSam tested it yet. Right now, I'm waiting for the GUI to get more development before we move further with them. Being Vyatta under the hood, you can do just about anything, but the helpdesk techs don't understand CLI. Kudos on the IPv6 GUI support out of the box. Eric Miller, CCNP Network Engineering Consultant (407) 257-5115 -Original Message- From: Ray Soucy [mailto:r...@maine.edu] Sent: Friday, November 22, 2013 7:35 AM To: Seth Mos Cc: NANOG Subject: Re: Meraki FWIW, I picked up a UniFi 3-pack of APs and built up a controller VM using Ubuntu Server LTS and the beta multi-site controller code over the past week. I'm very impressed so far, it doesn't have all the bells and whistles of Cisco setup, sure, but I'm pretty shocked at the level of functionality here and the ease of having APs use an off-site controller (they all phone home over TCP so no VPN or port forwarding is required). I'm interested in UniFi mainly for remote Libraries that don't have any IT staff but need a little more than a router from Best Buy. Also of interest is the EdgeMAX line. I also got the EdgeRouter LITE for testing this past week after finding out it runs a fork of Vyatta (EdgeOS) and is developed by former Vyatta employees. For a sub- $100 device ... very impressive. Pricing just popped up for the new EdgeRouter PRO last night and I was pretty blown away: $360 For a device with 2 SFP ports, and 2M PPS. That is music to my ears since we do a lot of dark fiber around the state even for smaller locations. I'm pretty excited to get one of these and see how they perform. I wish I would have bothered looking at Ubiquiti sooner, really. I'm a little embarrassed to admit I initially wrote them off because the prices were so low, but the more I look into these guys the more I like them. I feel like I'm at the risk for becoming a UBNT fanboy. Does anyone have any qualified horror stories about EdgeMAX or UniFi? Everything I've been able to find has been for nonsense configurations like complaining about trying to to OSPF over WiFi ... Who does that? On Fri, Nov 22, 2013 at 1:34 AM, Seth Mos seth@dds.nl wrote: Op 22 nov 2013, om 06:37 heeft Jay Ashworth het volgende geschreven: - Original Message - Anecdote: My local IHOP finally managed to get Wifi internet access in the restaurant. For reasons unknown to me, it's a Meraki box, backhauled *over T-mobile*. That's just as unpleasant as you'd think it would be, And More! Both the wifi and 3G (yes, 3G) boxes lock up on a fairly regular basis, requiring a power cycle, which, generally, they'll only do because I've been eating there for 20 years, and they trust me when I ask them to. I can't say whether this provides any illumination on the rest of their product line, but... To compound matters, i'd go as far as to say that any wireless solution on 2.4Ghz isn't really a wireless solution. It's just not feasible anymore in 2013, there is just *so much* interference from everything using the unlicensed 2.4Ghz band that it's own success is it's greatest downfall. Reliable wireless isn't (to use the famous war quote friendly fire isn't) For whatever reasons, whomever I talk to they all tell me that ISP here sucks, and if I ask further if they are using the wireless thingamabob that the ISP shipped them, they says yes. So, that's about right then. I've been using a PCengines.ch Alix router for years now (AMD Geode, x86, 256MB ram, CF) with a cable modem in bridge mode with seperate dual band access points in the places where I need them (living room, attic office) and I can't say that my experiences with the ISP here mesh with theirs. Anyhow, if you are going to deploy wireless, make sure to use dual band, and name the 2.4Ghz SSID internet and the 5Ghz SSID faster-internet. You'll see people having a heck of a better time. Social engineering works :) When we chose the Ubiquity wireless kit we could deploy twice as many APs for the same price of one of the other APs. This effectively means we have a very dense wireless network that covers the entire building, and lot's of kit that can actually see and use the 5Ghz band. Setup was super easy, I added a unifi DNS name that points to my unifi controller host and I get a email that a new AP is ready to be put into service. Having a local management host instead of some cloud was a hard requirement. I also like that I can just apt-get update; apt-get upgrade the software. By using DNS remote deployment was super easy too, send the unit off and let them plug
Re: Meraki
FWIW, I picked up a UniFi 3-pack of APs and built up a controller VM using Ubuntu Server LTS and the beta multi-site controller code over the past week. I'm very impressed so far, it doesn't have all the bells and whistles of Cisco setup, sure, but I'm pretty shocked at the level of functionality here and the ease of having APs use an off-site controller (they all phone home over TCP so no VPN or port forwarding is required). I'm interested in UniFi mainly for remote Libraries that don't have any IT staff but need a little more than a router from Best Buy. Also of interest is the EdgeMAX line. I also got the EdgeRouter LITE for testing this past week after finding out it runs a fork of Vyatta (EdgeOS) and is developed by former Vyatta employees. For a sub- $100 device ... very impressive. Pricing just popped up for the new EdgeRouter PRO last night and I was pretty blown away: $360 For a device with 2 SFP ports, and 2M PPS. That is music to my ears since we do a lot of dark fiber around the state even for smaller locations. I'm pretty excited to get one of these and see how they perform. I wish I would have bothered looking at Ubiquiti sooner, really. I'm a little embarrassed to admit I initially wrote them off because the prices were so low, but the more I look into these guys the more I like them. I feel like I'm at the risk for becoming a UBNT fanboy. Does anyone have any qualified horror stories about EdgeMAX or UniFi? Everything I've been able to find has been for nonsense configurations like complaining about trying to to OSPF over WiFi ... Who does that? On Fri, Nov 22, 2013 at 1:34 AM, Seth Mos seth@dds.nl wrote: Op 22 nov 2013, om 06:37 heeft Jay Ashworth het volgende geschreven: - Original Message - Anecdote: My local IHOP finally managed to get Wifi internet access in the restaurant. For reasons unknown to me, it's a Meraki box, backhauled *over T-mobile*. That's just as unpleasant as you'd think it would be, And More! Both the wifi and 3G (yes, 3G) boxes lock up on a fairly regular basis, requiring a power cycle, which, generally, they'll only do because I've been eating there for 20 years, and they trust me when I ask them to. I can't say whether this provides any illumination on the rest of their product line, but... To compound matters, i'd go as far as to say that any wireless solution on 2.4Ghz isn't really a wireless solution. It's just not feasible anymore in 2013, there is just *so much* interference from everything using the unlicensed 2.4Ghz band that it's own success is it's greatest downfall. Reliable wireless isn't (to use the famous war quote friendly fire isn't) For whatever reasons, whomever I talk to they all tell me that ISP here sucks, and if I ask further if they are using the wireless thingamabob that the ISP shipped them, they says yes. So, that's about right then. I've been using a PCengines.ch Alix router for years now (AMD Geode, x86, 256MB ram, CF) with a cable modem in bridge mode with seperate dual band access points in the places where I need them (living room, attic office) and I can't say that my experiences with the ISP here mesh with theirs. Anyhow, if you are going to deploy wireless, make sure to use dual band, and name the 2.4Ghz SSID internet and the 5Ghz SSID faster-internet. You'll see people having a heck of a better time. Social engineering works :) When we chose the Ubiquity wireless kit we could deploy twice as many APs for the same price of one of the other APs. This effectively means we have a very dense wireless network that covers the entire building, and lot's of kit that can actually see and use the 5Ghz band. Setup was super easy, I added a unifi DNS name that points to my unifi controller host and I get a email that a new AP is ready to be put into service. Having a local management host instead of some cloud was a hard requirement. I also like that I can just apt-get update; apt-get upgrade the software. By using DNS remote deployment was super easy too, send the unit off and let them plug it in, it then comes onto the network and registers itself. I believe every current Apple iDevice currently supports the 5Ghz band, and all the Dell gear we purchase also comes ordered with it. Heck, even my 2011 Sony Xperia T has 5Ghz wireless now, as do the current Samsung Galaxy S3, S4 Best regards, Seth -- Ray Patrick Soucy Network Engineer University of Maine System T: 207-561-3526 F: 207-561-3531 MaineREN, Maine's Research and Education Network www.maineren.net
Re: Meraki
Read the unifi forums (I was pretty active there when I was testing unifi controller beta). If that doesn't cure your fanboy feelings, you are doomed. Sent from my Mobile Device. Original message From: Ray Soucy r...@maine.edu Date: 11/22/2013 3:37 AM (GMT-09:00) To: Seth Mos seth@dds.nl Cc: NANOG nanog@nanog.org Subject: Re: Meraki FWIW, I picked up a UniFi 3-pack of APs and built up a controller VM using Ubuntu Server LTS and the beta multi-site controller code over the past week. I'm very impressed so far, it doesn't have all the bells and whistles of Cisco setup, sure, but I'm pretty shocked at the level of functionality here and the ease of having APs use an off-site controller (they all phone home over TCP so no VPN or port forwarding is required). I'm interested in UniFi mainly for remote Libraries that don't have any IT staff but need a little more than a router from Best Buy. Also of interest is the EdgeMAX line. I also got the EdgeRouter LITE for testing this past week after finding out it runs a fork of Vyatta (EdgeOS) and is developed by former Vyatta employees. For a sub- $100 device ... very impressive. Pricing just popped up for the new EdgeRouter PRO last night and I was pretty blown away: $360 For a device with 2 SFP ports, and 2M PPS. That is music to my ears since we do a lot of dark fiber around the state even for smaller locations. I'm pretty excited to get one of these and see how they perform. I wish I would have bothered looking at Ubiquiti sooner, really. I'm a little embarrassed to admit I initially wrote them off because the prices were so low, but the more I look into these guys the more I like them. I feel like I'm at the risk for becoming a UBNT fanboy. Does anyone have any qualified horror stories about EdgeMAX or UniFi? Everything I've been able to find has been for nonsense configurations like complaining about trying to to OSPF over WiFi ... Who does that? On Fri, Nov 22, 2013 at 1:34 AM, Seth Mos seth@dds.nl wrote: Op 22 nov 2013, om 06:37 heeft Jay Ashworth het volgende geschreven: - Original Message - Anecdote: My local IHOP finally managed to get Wifi internet access in the restaurant. For reasons unknown to me, it's a Meraki box, backhauled *over T-mobile*. That's just as unpleasant as you'd think it would be, And More! Both the wifi and 3G (yes, 3G) boxes lock up on a fairly regular basis, requiring a power cycle, which, generally, they'll only do because I've been eating there for 20 years, and they trust me when I ask them to. I can't say whether this provides any illumination on the rest of their product line, but... To compound matters, i'd go as far as to say that any wireless solution on 2.4Ghz isn't really a wireless solution. It's just not feasible anymore in 2013, there is just *so much* interference from everything using the unlicensed 2.4Ghz band that it's own success is it's greatest downfall. Reliable wireless isn't (to use the famous war quote friendly fire isn't) For whatever reasons, whomever I talk to they all tell me that ISP here sucks, and if I ask further if they are using the wireless thingamabob that the ISP shipped them, they says yes. So, that's about right then. I've been using a PCengines.ch Alix router for years now (AMD Geode, x86, 256MB ram, CF) with a cable modem in bridge mode with seperate dual band access points in the places where I need them (living room, attic office) and I can't say that my experiences with the ISP here mesh with theirs. Anyhow, if you are going to deploy wireless, make sure to use dual band, and name the 2.4Ghz SSID internet and the 5Ghz SSID faster-internet. You'll see people having a heck of a better time. Social engineering works :) When we chose the Ubiquity wireless kit we could deploy twice as many APs for the same price of one of the other APs. This effectively means we have a very dense wireless network that covers the entire building, and lot's of kit that can actually see and use the 5Ghz band. Setup was super easy, I added a unifi DNS name that points to my unifi controller host and I get a email that a new AP is ready to be put into service. Having a local management host instead of some cloud was a hard requirement. I also like that I can just apt-get update; apt-get upgrade the software. By using DNS remote deployment was super easy too, send the unit off and let them plug it in, it then comes onto the network and registers itself. I believe every current Apple iDevice currently supports the 5Ghz band, and all the Dell gear we purchase also comes ordered with it. Heck, even my 2011 Sony Xperia T has 5Ghz wireless now, as do the current Samsung Galaxy S3, S4 Best regards, Seth -- Ray Patrick Soucy Network Engineer University of Maine System T: 207-561-3526 F: 207-561-3531 MaineREN, Maine's Research and Education Network www.maineren.nethttp
Re: Meraki
For what it's worth... We did a conference, KazooCon, with Meraki Gear and Ubiquiti Access Points. I am not a wizard but I set the whole network up except the access points which failed to detect at first. I think it took about an hour to setup in total; really easy even with the stutter. The network gear was: 2x Meraki Firewall 2x Meraki 48 port switch 4x Ubiquiti APN Comcast dropped two cable modems in for us, 200Mbps for 2 days of bliss. The conference network was ridiculous, but all parts held up well. The wifi was fast and the LAN for the SIP phones was perfect. It was kind of overkill, but can you ever really have too much bandwidth? Cheers, Joshua Sent from my iPhone On Nov 20, 2013, at 12:12 PM, William Waites wwai...@tardis.ed.ac.uk wrote: On Wed, 20 Nov 2013 14:08:53 -0500, Ray Soucy r...@maine.edu said: I'm very interested in other user experiences with Ubiquity for smaller deployments vs. traditional Cisco APs and WLC. Especially for a collection of rural areas. The price point and software controller are very attractive. I've never used the software controller but we use a lot of Ubiquiti kit in rural Scotland. We use it mostly in transparent bridge mode with more capable routers speaking ethernet - FreeBSD on Soekris boards and Mikrotik mostly. In general the RF part is great, but the software part is buggy. We have been extensively bitten by transparent bridge not being transparent enough and eating multicast packets which of course completely hoses OSPF. Using NBMA and being very careful about which firmware version mostly works. Don't try to make them do anything sophisticated. -w -- The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in Scotland, with registration number SC005336.
RE: Meraki
Meraki does not handle high density environments well, will drop clients. I also hate the idea of subscription based hardware, we should be moving away from the nickel and dime model. We deployed Ruckus and couldn't be happier, running 50+ clients per AP. Brent Meshier | Amherst Holdings, LLC | 5001 Plaza on the Lake, Suite 200, Austin, TX 78746 | T: 512-342-3010 --- Please refer to http://www.amherst.com/amherst-email-disclaimer/ for important disclosures regarding this electronic communication.
Re: Meraki
- Original Message - From: Hank Disuko gourmetci...@hotmail.com I'm considering Cisco's Meraki platform for my access layer and I'm looking for deployment stories of folks that have deployed Meraki in the past...good/bad/ugly kinda stuff. I know Meraki hardcores were upset when Cisco acquired them, but not exactly sure why. Anecdote: My local IHOP finally managed to get Wifi internet access in the restaurant. For reasons unknown to me, it's a Meraki box, backhauled *over T-mobile*. That's just as unpleasant as you'd think it would be, And More! Both the wifi and 3G (yes, 3G) boxes lock up on a fairly regular basis, requiring a power cycle, which, generally, they'll only do because I've been eating there for 20 years, and they trust me when I ask them to. I can't say whether this provides any illumination on the rest of their product line, but... Cheers, -- jra -- Make Election Day a federal holiday: http://wh.gov/lBm94 100k sigs by 12/14 Jay R. Ashworth Baylink j...@baylink.com Designer The Things I Think RFC 2100 Ashworth Associates http://baylink.pitas.com 2000 Land Rover DII St Petersburg FL USA #natog +1 727 647 1274
Re: Meraki
Op 22 nov 2013, om 06:37 heeft Jay Ashworth het volgende geschreven: - Original Message - Anecdote: My local IHOP finally managed to get Wifi internet access in the restaurant. For reasons unknown to me, it's a Meraki box, backhauled *over T-mobile*. That's just as unpleasant as you'd think it would be, And More! Both the wifi and 3G (yes, 3G) boxes lock up on a fairly regular basis, requiring a power cycle, which, generally, they'll only do because I've been eating there for 20 years, and they trust me when I ask them to. I can't say whether this provides any illumination on the rest of their product line, but... To compound matters, i'd go as far as to say that any wireless solution on 2.4Ghz isn't really a wireless solution. It's just not feasible anymore in 2013, there is just *so much* interference from everything using the unlicensed 2.4Ghz band that it's own success is it's greatest downfall. Reliable wireless isn't (to use the famous war quote friendly fire isn't) For whatever reasons, whomever I talk to they all tell me that ISP here sucks, and if I ask further if they are using the wireless thingamabob that the ISP shipped them, they says yes. So, that's about right then. I've been using a PCengines.ch Alix router for years now (AMD Geode, x86, 256MB ram, CF) with a cable modem in bridge mode with seperate dual band access points in the places where I need them (living room, attic office) and I can't say that my experiences with the ISP here mesh with theirs. Anyhow, if you are going to deploy wireless, make sure to use dual band, and name the 2.4Ghz SSID internet and the 5Ghz SSID faster-internet. You'll see people having a heck of a better time. Social engineering works :) When we chose the Ubiquity wireless kit we could deploy twice as many APs for the same price of one of the other APs. This effectively means we have a very dense wireless network that covers the entire building, and lot's of kit that can actually see and use the 5Ghz band. Setup was super easy, I added a unifi DNS name that points to my unifi controller host and I get a email that a new AP is ready to be put into service. Having a local management host instead of some cloud was a hard requirement. I also like that I can just apt-get update; apt-get upgrade the software. By using DNS remote deployment was super easy too, send the unit off and let them plug it in, it then comes onto the network and registers itself. I believe every current Apple iDevice currently supports the 5Ghz band, and all the Dell gear we purchase also comes ordered with it. Heck, even my 2011 Sony Xperia T has 5Ghz wireless now, as do the current Samsung Galaxy S3, S4 Best regards, Seth
RE: Meraki
Just finished a project doing an entire convention center with Xirrus. Awesome results and many more options than Meraki. I would say that it was one of those signature projects that had to happen in a very short schedule and we had to provide support for the event. Onsite engineers stated that it was the most boring support event they ever went too. In the four days that we provided turn-up support there wasn't a single issue and only alcolades from the event center and attendees. We have previously deployed Meraki in large environments as well the Xirrus. The Xirrus product is superior in so many ways. I am not a big fan of cloud based network management, I think as network providers in rapidly changing environments there are times when equipment is decommissioned and put on a shelf for a rainy day or emergency project, I don't see that really happening with the Meraki model unless you want to keep dumping money into them. DSJ Dustin Jurman CEO Rapid Systems Corporation 1211 N. West Shore Blvd. Suite 711 Tampa, FL 33607 Ph: 813-232-4887 Cell:813-892-7006 http://www.rapidsys.com Building Better Infrastructure -Original Message- From: Glenn Robuck [mailto:techraving...@gmail.com] Sent: Tuesday, November 19, 2013 5:12 PM To: NANOG Subject: Re: Meraki I'm curious if any of you guys have compared Meraki and Xirrus? We are currently in the process of picking new WAPs and have narrowed it down to these too. We are leaning towards Xirrus due to it's modular structure. It also has a great user interface. Anyone else evaluate Xirrus? On Tue, Nov 19, 2013 at 3:34 PM, Warren Bailey wbai...@satelliteintelligencegroup.com wrote: They give you a free ap for listening to their pitch.. We love them. Expensive.. But responsive and responsible.. Which is pretty hard to find in Wi-Fi land. Pretty interface and lots of little bells and whistles.. They have my vote from what we evaluated (ubnt, Blahblahblah). Sent from my Mobile Device. Original message From: Pedersen, Sean sean.peder...@usairways.com Date: 11/19/2013 12:00 PM (GMT-09:00) To: NANOG nanog@nanog.org Subject: RE: Meraki I started to look into them for personal and limited small business use, but stopped short when I realized their cloud management platform is subscription-based. Unless I've missed something, you cannot deploy your own internal management platform. It's all licensed through Meraki/Cisco, which means if you lose your Internet connection, you lose management access to your gear. That could be a deal-killer in certain environments. Maybe someone with more experience on the platform could correct me there. -Original Message- From: Hank Disuko [mailto:gourmetci...@hotmail.com] Sent: Tuesday, November 19, 2013 10:26 AM To: NANOG Subject: Meraki Hi folks, I've traditionally been a Cisco Catalyst shop for my switching gear. I am doing a significant hardware refresh in one of my offices, which will entail replacing about 20 access switches and a couple core devices. Pretty simple L3 VLAN environment with VRRP/HSRP, on the physical end I have 1G fibre/copper and 10G fibre. My core switch of choice will likely be the Cat 4500 series. I'm considering Cisco's Meraki platform for my access layer and I'm looking for deployment stories of folks that have deployed Meraki in the past...good/bad/ugly kinda stuff. I know Meraki hardcores were upset when Cisco acquired them, but not exactly sure why. Anyway, any thoughts would be useful. Thanks! -Hank
Re: Meraki
Meraki did not work for me in a high density office environment, with heavy wireless usage. Kept dropping clients at peak times. We went with Aruba. On 11/19/13 9:25 AM, Hank Disuko wrote: Hi folks, I've traditionally been a Cisco Catalyst shop for my switching gear. I am doing a significant hardware refresh in one of my offices, which will entail replacing about 20 access switches and a couple core devices. Pretty simple L3 VLAN environment with VRRP/HSRP, on the physical end I have 1G fibre/copper and 10G fibre. My core switch of choice will likely be the Cat 4500 series. I'm considering Cisco's Meraki platform for my access layer and I'm looking for deployment stories of folks that have deployed Meraki in the past...good/bad/ugly kinda stuff. I know Meraki hardcores were upset when Cisco acquired them, but not exactly sure why. Anyway, any thoughts would be useful. Thanks! -Hank
Re: Meraki
I'm very interested in other user experiences with Ubiquity for smaller deployments vs. traditional Cisco APs and WLC. Especially for a collection of rural areas. The price point and software controller are very attractive. Anyone running a centralized controller for a lot of remote sites? On Tue, Nov 19, 2013 at 1:57 PM, Seth Mos seth@dds.nl wrote: Op 19 nov 2013, om 18:25 heeft Hank Disuko het volgende geschreven: Hi folks, I've traditionally been a Cisco Catalyst shop for my switching gear. I am doing a significant hardware refresh in one of my offices, which will entail replacing about 20 access switches and a couple core devices. Pretty simple L3 VLAN environment with VRRP/HSRP, on the physical end I have 1G fibre/copper and 10G fibre. My core switch of choice will likely be the Cat 4500 series. I'm considering Cisco's Meraki platform for my access layer and I'm looking for deployment stories of folks that have deployed Meraki in the past...good/bad/ugly kinda stuff. I know Meraki hardcores were upset when Cisco acquired them, but not exactly sure why. Anyway, any thoughts would be useful. Thanks! We used to use the 3Com wireless kit before it became H3C, and then HP, which worked ok but the engrish in the UI was horrid. We've since purchased 25 Ubiquity wireless access points, specifically the 300N Pro access points, they work really well, pricing is competitive priced and the management is nice. I've setup a Debian VM, installed their management software from their APT repo and just go from there. The version 3 software also supports multi-site which is really nice. It's a huge upgrade over our previous wireless though. Cheers, Seth -- Ray Patrick Soucy Network Engineer University of Maine System T: 207-561-3526 F: 207-561-3531 MaineREN, Maine's Research and Education Network www.maineren.net
Re: Meraki
On Wed, 20 Nov 2013 14:08:53 -0500, Ray Soucy r...@maine.edu said: I'm very interested in other user experiences with Ubiquity for smaller deployments vs. traditional Cisco APs and WLC. Especially for a collection of rural areas. The price point and software controller are very attractive. I've never used the software controller but we use a lot of Ubiquiti kit in rural Scotland. We use it mostly in transparent bridge mode with more capable routers speaking ethernet - FreeBSD on Soekris boards and Mikrotik mostly. In general the RF part is great, but the software part is buggy. We have been extensively bitten by transparent bridge not being transparent enough and eating multicast packets which of course completely hoses OSPF. Using NBMA and being very careful about which firmware version mostly works. Don't try to make them do anything sophisticated. -w -- The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in Scotland, with registration number SC005336.
Re: Meraki
On Tue, 19 Nov 2013 16:36:42 -0500, Christopher Morrow morrowc.li...@gmail.com wrote: so you just decide: How many may we have to deploy? then schedule that many pitch meetings with them? :) Heh. No. It's not supposed to work like that. They want a verifiable company for the free (cheapest, most basic) AP. And you (and the associated company) get one, and only one, freebee. (As it's the basic 2.4Ghz model, I've been less motivated to get my schwag.)
Re: Meraki
If we had cheerios.. You just urinated in them. :( Sometimes a joke should be a joke to laugh at.. Not discredit. Next time we will beat Morrow for not being funny enough.. ;) Sent from my Mobile Device. Original message From: Ricky Beam jfb...@gmail.com Date: 11/20/2013 11:32 AM (GMT-09:00) To: nanog@nanog.org Subject: Re: Meraki On Tue, 19 Nov 2013 16:36:42 -0500, Christopher Morrow morrowc.li...@gmail.com wrote: so you just decide: How many may we have to deploy? then schedule that many pitch meetings with them? :) Heh. No. It's not supposed to work like that. They want a verifiable company for the free (cheapest, most basic) AP. And you (and the associated company) get one, and only one, freebee. (As it's the basic 2.4Ghz model, I've been less motivated to get my schwag.)
Re: Meraki
On Wed, Nov 20, 2013 at 11:33 PM, Warren Bailey wbai...@satelliteintelligencegroup.com wrote: If we had cheerios.. You just urinated in them. :( Sometimes a joke should be a joke to laugh at.. Not discredit. Next time we will beat Morrow for not being funny enough.. ;) you CAN spin up a new LLC for less than their cheapy AP... so it might actually work out to do that for each of your employees :) Original message From: Ricky Beam jfb...@gmail.com Date: 11/20/2013 11:32 AM (GMT-09:00) To: nanog@nanog.org Subject: Re: Meraki On Tue, 19 Nov 2013 16:36:42 -0500, Christopher Morrow morrowc.li...@gmail.com wrote: so you just decide: How many may we have to deploy? then schedule that many pitch meetings with them? :) Heh. No. It's not supposed to work like that. They want a verifiable company for the free (cheapest, most basic) AP. And you (and the associated company) get one, and only one, freebee. (As it's the basic 2.4Ghz model, I've been less motivated to get my schwag.)
Re: Meraki
Okay.. Get me my stick.. Morrow is in for it. ;) Sent from my Mobile Device. Original message From: Christopher Morrow morrowc.li...@gmail.com Date: 11/20/2013 7:50 PM (GMT-09:00) To: Warren Bailey wbai...@satelliteintelligencegroup.com Cc: Ricky Beam jfb...@gmail.com,nanog@nanog.org Subject: Re: Meraki On Wed, Nov 20, 2013 at 11:33 PM, Warren Bailey wbai...@satelliteintelligencegroup.com wrote: If we had cheerios.. You just urinated in them. :( Sometimes a joke should be a joke to laugh at.. Not discredit. Next time we will beat Morrow for not being funny enough.. ;) you CAN spin up a new LLC for less than their cheapy AP... so it might actually work out to do that for each of your employees :) Original message From: Ricky Beam jfb...@gmail.com Date: 11/20/2013 11:32 AM (GMT-09:00) To: nanog@nanog.org Subject: Re: Meraki On Tue, 19 Nov 2013 16:36:42 -0500, Christopher Morrow morrowc.li...@gmail.com wrote: so you just decide: How many may we have to deploy? then schedule that many pitch meetings with them? :) Heh. No. It's not supposed to work like that. They want a verifiable company for the free (cheapest, most basic) AP. And you (and the associated company) get one, and only one, freebee. (As it's the basic 2.4Ghz model, I've been less motivated to get my schwag.)
Meraki
Hi folks, I've traditionally been a Cisco Catalyst shop for my switching gear. I am doing a significant hardware refresh in one of my offices, which will entail replacing about 20 access switches and a couple core devices. Pretty simple L3 VLAN environment with VRRP/HSRP, on the physical end I have 1G fibre/copper and 10G fibre. My core switch of choice will likely be the Cat 4500 series. I'm considering Cisco's Meraki platform for my access layer and I'm looking for deployment stories of folks that have deployed Meraki in the past...good/bad/ugly kinda stuff. I know Meraki hardcores were upset when Cisco acquired them, but not exactly sure why. Anyway, any thoughts would be useful. Thanks! -Hank
Re: Meraki
I've used them on a bunch of field deployments. Love'em. When clients have them it makes documenting any part of the experience a technician level task. Need a pcap? Built into the GUI. Want the switch to SMS you when ports get knocked out? Built into the GUI. Do you like visuals that actually make some goddamn sense? Meraki has it. I never had to go into the command line for any reason, at least not so far. I can say they had some issues detecting the ubiquiti access points at a client site but I think that had more to do with faulty internal wiring than anything else. Anyways, I like'em. Cheers, Joshua Sent from my iPhone On Nov 19, 2013, at 9:26 AM, Hank Disuko gourmetci...@hotmail.com wrote: Hi folks, I've traditionally been a Cisco Catalyst shop for my switching gear. I am doing a significant hardware refresh in one of my offices, which will entail replacing about 20 access switches and a couple core devices. Pretty simple L3 VLAN environment with VRRP/HSRP, on the physical end I have 1G fibre/copper and 10G fibre. My core switch of choice will likely be the Cat 4500 series. I'm considering Cisco's Meraki platform for my access layer and I'm looking for deployment stories of folks that have deployed Meraki in the past...good/bad/ugly kinda stuff. I know Meraki hardcores were upset when Cisco acquired them, but not exactly sure why. Anyway, any thoughts would be useful. Thanks! -Hank
Re: Meraki
+1 for Joshua's comments. Used them in a small rollout (~20k sqft of office space across two buildings), was extremely pleased. Authentication can tie into OAuth (Google Apps) or LDAP/AD. Email or SMS alerts for *everything*. Would highly recommend them. Brandon On Tue, Nov 19, 2013 at 11:30 AM, Joshua Goldbard j...@2600hz.com wrote: I've used them on a bunch of field deployments. Love'em. When clients have them it makes documenting any part of the experience a technician level task. Need a pcap? Built into the GUI. Want the switch to SMS you when ports get knocked out? Built into the GUI. Do you like visuals that actually make some goddamn sense? Meraki has it. I never had to go into the command line for any reason, at least not so far. I can say they had some issues detecting the ubiquiti access points at a client site but I think that had more to do with faulty internal wiring than anything else. Anyways, I like'em. Cheers, Joshua Sent from my iPhone On Nov 19, 2013, at 9:26 AM, Hank Disuko gourmetci...@hotmail.com wrote: Hi folks, I've traditionally been a Cisco Catalyst shop for my switching gear. I am doing a significant hardware refresh in one of my offices, which will entail replacing about 20 access switches and a couple core devices. Pretty simple L3 VLAN environment with VRRP/HSRP, on the physical end I have 1G fibre/copper and 10G fibre. My core switch of choice will likely be the Cat 4500 series. I'm considering Cisco's Meraki platform for my access layer and I'm looking for deployment stories of folks that have deployed Meraki in the past...good/bad/ugly kinda stuff. I know Meraki hardcores were upset when Cisco acquired them, but not exactly sure why. Anyway, any thoughts would be useful. Thanks! -Hank
Re: Meraki
Op 19 nov 2013, om 18:25 heeft Hank Disuko het volgende geschreven: Hi folks, I've traditionally been a Cisco Catalyst shop for my switching gear. I am doing a significant hardware refresh in one of my offices, which will entail replacing about 20 access switches and a couple core devices. Pretty simple L3 VLAN environment with VRRP/HSRP, on the physical end I have 1G fibre/copper and 10G fibre. My core switch of choice will likely be the Cat 4500 series. I'm considering Cisco's Meraki platform for my access layer and I'm looking for deployment stories of folks that have deployed Meraki in the past...good/bad/ugly kinda stuff. I know Meraki hardcores were upset when Cisco acquired them, but not exactly sure why. Anyway, any thoughts would be useful. Thanks! We used to use the 3Com wireless kit before it became H3C, and then HP, which worked ok but the engrish in the UI was horrid. We've since purchased 25 Ubiquity wireless access points, specifically the 300N Pro access points, they work really well, pricing is competitive priced and the management is nice. I've setup a Debian VM, installed their management software from their APT repo and just go from there. The version 3 software also supports multi-site which is really nice. It's a huge upgrade over our previous wireless though. Cheers, Seth
RE: Meraki
I started to look into them for personal and limited small business use, but stopped short when I realized their cloud management platform is subscription-based. Unless I've missed something, you cannot deploy your own internal management platform. It's all licensed through Meraki/Cisco, which means if you lose your Internet connection, you lose management access to your gear. That could be a deal-killer in certain environments. Maybe someone with more experience on the platform could correct me there. -Original Message- From: Hank Disuko [mailto:gourmetci...@hotmail.com] Sent: Tuesday, November 19, 2013 10:26 AM To: NANOG Subject: Meraki Hi folks, I've traditionally been a Cisco Catalyst shop for my switching gear. I am doing a significant hardware refresh in one of my offices, which will entail replacing about 20 access switches and a couple core devices. Pretty simple L3 VLAN environment with VRRP/HSRP, on the physical end I have 1G fibre/copper and 10G fibre. My core switch of choice will likely be the Cat 4500 series. I'm considering Cisco's Meraki platform for my access layer and I'm looking for deployment stories of folks that have deployed Meraki in the past...good/bad/ugly kinda stuff. I know Meraki hardcores were upset when Cisco acquired them, but not exactly sure why. Anyway, any thoughts would be useful. Thanks! -Hank
RE: Meraki
They give you a free ap for listening to their pitch.. We love them. Expensive.. But responsive and responsible.. Which is pretty hard to find in Wi-Fi land. Pretty interface and lots of little bells and whistles.. They have my vote from what we evaluated (ubnt, Blahblahblah). Sent from my Mobile Device. Original message From: Pedersen, Sean sean.peder...@usairways.com Date: 11/19/2013 12:00 PM (GMT-09:00) To: NANOG nanog@nanog.org Subject: RE: Meraki I started to look into them for personal and limited small business use, but stopped short when I realized their cloud management platform is subscription-based. Unless I've missed something, you cannot deploy your own internal management platform. It's all licensed through Meraki/Cisco, which means if you lose your Internet connection, you lose management access to your gear. That could be a deal-killer in certain environments. Maybe someone with more experience on the platform could correct me there. -Original Message- From: Hank Disuko [mailto:gourmetci...@hotmail.com] Sent: Tuesday, November 19, 2013 10:26 AM To: NANOG Subject: Meraki Hi folks, I've traditionally been a Cisco Catalyst shop for my switching gear. I am doing a significant hardware refresh in one of my offices, which will entail replacing about 20 access switches and a couple core devices. Pretty simple L3 VLAN environment with VRRP/HSRP, on the physical end I have 1G fibre/copper and 10G fibre. My core switch of choice will likely be the Cat 4500 series. I'm considering Cisco's Meraki platform for my access layer and I'm looking for deployment stories of folks that have deployed Meraki in the past...good/bad/ugly kinda stuff. I know Meraki hardcores were upset when Cisco acquired them, but not exactly sure why. Anyway, any thoughts would be useful. Thanks! -Hank
Re: Meraki
On Tue, Nov 19, 2013 at 4:34 PM, Warren Bailey wbai...@satelliteintelligencegroup.com wrote: They give you a free ap for listening to their pitch.. We love them. Expensive.. But so you just decide: How many may we have to deploy? then schedule that many pitch meetings with them? :)
Re: Meraki
If you have one of their routers, etc. you cannot lock yourself out of the device. You can always web to the 'inside' interface and make basic configuration changes. It's not going to let you do policy stuff, etc. but will let you do enough to establish / re-establish network connectivity. On Tue, Nov 19, 2013 at 4:34 PM, Warren Bailey wbai...@satelliteintelligencegroup.com wrote: They give you a free ap for listening to their pitch.. We love them. Expensive.. But responsive and responsible.. Which is pretty hard to find in Wi-Fi land. Pretty interface and lots of little bells and whistles.. They have my vote from what we evaluated (ubnt, Blahblahblah). Sent from my Mobile Device. Original message From: Pedersen, Sean sean.peder...@usairways.com Date: 11/19/2013 12:00 PM (GMT-09:00) To: NANOG nanog@nanog.org Subject: RE: Meraki I started to look into them for personal and limited small business use, but stopped short when I realized their cloud management platform is subscription-based. Unless I've missed something, you cannot deploy your own internal management platform. It's all licensed through Meraki/Cisco, which means if you lose your Internet connection, you lose management access to your gear. That could be a deal-killer in certain environments. Maybe someone with more experience on the platform could correct me there. -Original Message- From: Hank Disuko [mailto:gourmetci...@hotmail.com] Sent: Tuesday, November 19, 2013 10:26 AM To: NANOG Subject: Meraki Hi folks, I've traditionally been a Cisco Catalyst shop for my switching gear. I am doing a significant hardware refresh in one of my offices, which will entail replacing about 20 access switches and a couple core devices. Pretty simple L3 VLAN environment with VRRP/HSRP, on the physical end I have 1G fibre/copper and 10G fibre. My core switch of choice will likely be the Cat 4500 series. I'm considering Cisco's Meraki platform for my access layer and I'm looking for deployment stories of folks that have deployed Meraki in the past...good/bad/ugly kinda stuff. I know Meraki hardcores were upset when Cisco acquired them, but not exactly sure why. Anyway, any thoughts would be useful. Thanks! -Hank
Re: Meraki
I'm curious if any of you guys have compared Meraki and Xirrus? We are currently in the process of picking new WAPs and have narrowed it down to these too. We are leaning towards Xirrus due to it's modular structure. It also has a great user interface. Anyone else evaluate Xirrus? On Tue, Nov 19, 2013 at 3:34 PM, Warren Bailey wbai...@satelliteintelligencegroup.com wrote: They give you a free ap for listening to their pitch.. We love them. Expensive.. But responsive and responsible.. Which is pretty hard to find in Wi-Fi land. Pretty interface and lots of little bells and whistles.. They have my vote from what we evaluated (ubnt, Blahblahblah). Sent from my Mobile Device. Original message From: Pedersen, Sean sean.peder...@usairways.com Date: 11/19/2013 12:00 PM (GMT-09:00) To: NANOG nanog@nanog.org Subject: RE: Meraki I started to look into them for personal and limited small business use, but stopped short when I realized their cloud management platform is subscription-based. Unless I've missed something, you cannot deploy your own internal management platform. It's all licensed through Meraki/Cisco, which means if you lose your Internet connection, you lose management access to your gear. That could be a deal-killer in certain environments. Maybe someone with more experience on the platform could correct me there. -Original Message- From: Hank Disuko [mailto:gourmetci...@hotmail.com] Sent: Tuesday, November 19, 2013 10:26 AM To: NANOG Subject: Meraki Hi folks, I've traditionally been a Cisco Catalyst shop for my switching gear. I am doing a significant hardware refresh in one of my offices, which will entail replacing about 20 access switches and a couple core devices. Pretty simple L3 VLAN environment with VRRP/HSRP, on the physical end I have 1G fibre/copper and 10G fibre. My core switch of choice will likely be the Cat 4500 series. I'm considering Cisco's Meraki platform for my access layer and I'm looking for deployment stories of folks that have deployed Meraki in the past...good/bad/ugly kinda stuff. I know Meraki hardcores were upset when Cisco acquired them, but not exactly sure why. Anyway, any thoughts would be useful. Thanks! -Hank
Re: Meraki
Did you check out ubiquiti's UniFi? -Mike On Nov 19, 2013, at 14:13, Glenn Robuck techraving...@gmail.com wrote: I'm curious if any of you guys have compared Meraki and Xirrus? We are currently in the process of picking new WAPs and have narrowed it down to these too. We are leaning towards Xirrus due to it's modular structure. It also has a great user interface. Anyone else evaluate Xirrus? On Tue, Nov 19, 2013 at 3:34 PM, Warren Bailey wbai...@satelliteintelligencegroup.com wrote: They give you a free ap for listening to their pitch.. We love them. Expensive.. But responsive and responsible.. Which is pretty hard to find in Wi-Fi land. Pretty interface and lots of little bells and whistles.. They have my vote from what we evaluated (ubnt, Blahblahblah). Sent from my Mobile Device. Original message From: Pedersen, Sean sean.peder...@usairways.com Date: 11/19/2013 12:00 PM (GMT-09:00) To: NANOG nanog@nanog.org Subject: RE: Meraki I started to look into them for personal and limited small business use, but stopped short when I realized their cloud management platform is subscription-based. Unless I've missed something, you cannot deploy your own internal management platform. It's all licensed through Meraki/Cisco, which means if you lose your Internet connection, you lose management access to your gear. That could be a deal-killer in certain environments. Maybe someone with more experience on the platform could correct me there. -Original Message- From: Hank Disuko [mailto:gourmetci...@hotmail.com] Sent: Tuesday, November 19, 2013 10:26 AM To: NANOG Subject: Meraki Hi folks, I've traditionally been a Cisco Catalyst shop for my switching gear. I am doing a significant hardware refresh in one of my offices, which will entail replacing about 20 access switches and a couple core devices. Pretty simple L3 VLAN environment with VRRP/HSRP, on the physical end I have 1G fibre/copper and 10G fibre. My core switch of choice will likely be the Cat 4500 series. I'm considering Cisco's Meraki platform for my access layer and I'm looking for deployment stories of folks that have deployed Meraki in the past...good/bad/ugly kinda stuff. I know Meraki hardcores were upset when Cisco acquired them, but not exactly sure why. Anyway, any thoughts would be useful. Thanks! -Hank
Re: Meraki
Check out their forums first.. Look for my name.. ;) Ubnt has a cool price point. Sent from my Mobile Device. Original message From: Mike Lyon mike.l...@gmail.com Date: 11/19/2013 1:18 PM (GMT-09:00) To: Glenn Robuck techraving...@gmail.com Cc: NANOG nanog@nanog.org Subject: Re: Meraki Did you check out ubiquiti's UniFi? -Mike On Nov 19, 2013, at 14:13, Glenn Robuck techraving...@gmail.com wrote: I'm curious if any of you guys have compared Meraki and Xirrus? We are currently in the process of picking new WAPs and have narrowed it down to these too. We are leaning towards Xirrus due to it's modular structure. It also has a great user interface. Anyone else evaluate Xirrus? On Tue, Nov 19, 2013 at 3:34 PM, Warren Bailey wbai...@satelliteintelligencegroup.com wrote: They give you a free ap for listening to their pitch.. We love them. Expensive.. But responsive and responsible.. Which is pretty hard to find in Wi-Fi land. Pretty interface and lots of little bells and whistles.. They have my vote from what we evaluated (ubnt, Blahblahblah). Sent from my Mobile Device. Original message From: Pedersen, Sean sean.peder...@usairways.com Date: 11/19/2013 12:00 PM (GMT-09:00) To: NANOG nanog@nanog.org Subject: RE: Meraki I started to look into them for personal and limited small business use, but stopped short when I realized their cloud management platform is subscription-based. Unless I've missed something, you cannot deploy your own internal management platform. It's all licensed through Meraki/Cisco, which means if you lose your Internet connection, you lose management access to your gear. That could be a deal-killer in certain environments. Maybe someone with more experience on the platform could correct me there. -Original Message- From: Hank Disuko [mailto:gourmetci...@hotmail.com] Sent: Tuesday, November 19, 2013 10:26 AM To: NANOG Subject: Meraki Hi folks, I've traditionally been a Cisco Catalyst shop for my switching gear. I am doing a significant hardware refresh in one of my offices, which will entail replacing about 20 access switches and a couple core devices. Pretty simple L3 VLAN environment with VRRP/HSRP, on the physical end I have 1G fibre/copper and 10G fibre. My core switch of choice will likely be the Cat 4500 series. I'm considering Cisco's Meraki platform for my access layer and I'm looking for deployment stories of folks that have deployed Meraki in the past...good/bad/ugly kinda stuff. I know Meraki hardcores were upset when Cisco acquired them, but not exactly sure why. Anyway, any thoughts would be useful. Thanks! -Hank
Re: Meraki
Haha! Don't give up the secrets!! Sent from my Mobile Device. Original message From: Christopher Morrow morrowc.li...@gmail.com Date: 11/19/2013 12:36 PM (GMT-09:00) To: Warren Bailey wbai...@satelliteintelligencegroup.com Cc: Pedersen, Sean sean.peder...@usairways.com,NANOG nanog@nanog.org Subject: Re: Meraki On Tue, Nov 19, 2013 at 4:34 PM, Warren Bailey wbai...@satelliteintelligencegroup.com wrote: They give you a free ap for listening to their pitch.. We love them. Expensive.. But so you just decide: How many may we have to deploy? then schedule that many pitch meetings with them? :)
