Move a network from one organization to another

harmankardon
Building a reputation

Move a network from one organization to another

What is the best way to move a network from one organization to another? I know that licenses and devices can be easily moved, but is there a way to move a whole network?

 

I'm not even sure how I'd do it manually by re-creating the network in the destination organization. With a switch for example, I can't configure individual ports until the switch is present in the new network, but if I move it to the new network then I lose the ability to see what it's configuration was in the old network.

 

Do I have to manually document every single bit of device configuration on the existing network before I start moving devices? I'm thinking this would lead to a lot of downtime.

 

I may have to do this for several networks, hoping to find some way to automate or at least avoid the potential for human error.

10 Replies 10
alemabrahao
Kind of a big deal
Kind of a big deal

HI,

 

It is not possible to do, but I think a good way should be to export the configurations using APIs and then import them. Take a look at this link https://github.com/meraki/automation-scripts 

I am not a Cisco Meraki employee. My suggestions are based on documentation of Meraki best practices and day-to-day experience.

Please, if this post was useful, leave your kudos and mark it as solved.
harmankardon
Building a reputation

I'll have a look at this, thanks.

CptnCrnch
Kind of a big deal

Get in touch with support, if I remember correctly, they can help out.

harmankardon
Building a reputation

I thought this was the case as well, but the support engineer I spoke with said all they can do is help move devices/licenses, nothing regarding configuration.

ww
Kind of a big deal
Kind of a big deal

victormartins71
Here to help

You're absolutely right. What you can request from support is for the MX appliance to retain its configuration when moving to a different organization. While switches, APs, and other devices typically lose their settings when unclaimed, support has a method to preserve the configuration specifically for MX devices during the transition.

Satsuki
Meraki Employee
Meraki Employee

There doesn't appear to be a way to automate it as far as I know. You might want to look into creating a template for the new target network that would have your established config from your old one. 

 

 

harmankardon
Building a reputation

Interesting. In terms of minimizing downtime this seems like the best solution. Allows me to fully configure the destination network before having to move devices or licenses.

 

Any gotchas you can think of with this method?

Satsuki
Meraki Employee
Meraki Employee

No gotchas I can think of. But I'm going to assume you're prob moving an MX, I've used this doc before. Might want to take a look and read through it: https://documentation.meraki.com/Architectures_and_Best_Practices/Cisco_Meraki_Best_Practice_Design/...

 

There are other docs for different devices though so might want to take a look beforehand just in case. 

 

Something I do just in practice is taking screenshots of the info I need and saving them with the device name/page so I can go back and do it. You made mention of ports and stuff. This doc is helpful to create a switch profile for ports: https://documentation.meraki.com/Architectures_and_Best_Practices/Cisco_Meraki_Best_Practice_Design/...

 

 Looks like switch profiles are good for the same switches/same ports so might want to take that into consideration for deployment. 

 

 

 

 

GIdenJoe
Kind of a big deal
Kind of a big deal

Whenever you create a new network without any devices in it you will get all the sections (MX, MR, MS, MT,...)  So you can already configure firewall rules and SSID's before adding any device.

However you won't have any switchports and MX LAN ports to configure before you add the devices to it.

Once you have added all relevant devices, the other unused configuration sections will disappear.

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