New to Meraki. Lot's of switches coming in July.

[JohnW63]

Our school district has had Cisco switches for at least 10 years. We are purchasing about 150 Meraki MS390 switches. This will be a big project and a big mental change in how to manage the network.

1) I've been in IT since about 1987. Working for a school district since 1991. Changed from more technician work to Network Analyst about 1.5 years ago. 

2) I have never used any Meraki products.

3) I hope, with the communities help to roll out a truck load of switches with the least disruption and best configuration, as quickly and with as little stress as I can. 

4) I have too many hobbies to focus properly on any of them.  

[cwf]

Welcome to the community! I think you will be pleased moving to the Meraki switches.   Where are you located?

[JohnW63]

Southern California. 

I have concerns that I will miss the CLI configuration details of Cisco switches. Copy-Paste, save config. Done. Changing to GUI and hoping all the things I want to do will be there to select is a concern. Gaining all the visibility of the switches and making global changes in real time, instead of pushing out CLI stuff from Prime Infrastructure will be a bonus.  I'll be in a mixed Cisco-Meraki environment for a while. 

[Jwiley78]

You'll like the change.  No longer a need for backups.  All configs are in the cloud.  

Need to swap a bad device?  Just change the serial number and let it sync.

[JohnW63]

There are good and bad things about requiring the cloud for the switches. I almost stayed with traditional Cisco because of that.  

[BlakeRichardson]

@JohnW63 You are going to love working with Meraki switches, they are such a time saver and the reporting you get back from them is incredibly useful. 

[JohnW63]

Blake,

I hope so. The initial roll out generic setup of 150 switches by registering serial numbers was a tipping point toward Meraki. I still have reservations about locking our school district into permanent license costs from now on. Hopefully, after the paid for 5 years is up, we have no budget crisis. 

[DHAnderson]

The cost of the licenses is an issue if just looked as an expense.

If Total Cost of Ownership is considered, the license cost becomes less of an issue.

- Dave

[Jwiley78]

What platform of network hardware are you switching from?

Meraki has been great for the swaps we've done so far and give you more insight to your network then most manufacturers will.

[JohnW63]

See above

[CptnCrnch]

Hey John,

welcome to the community! Once you get the hang of not having to type the same things over and over into the CLI, you'll get to love the easy approach Meraki brings us. 😎