Reorganizing our Dashboard

[YellowKLR]

Much of our organization is shut down at the moment, so I figured this would be a good time to do some cleanup. 
When we moved to Meraki, our dashboard was set up to have separate networks for each firewall (22), then all of the switches from all sites were in one big network, and all APs in another. 
I've been researching best practice, and want to switch to combined networks.

I've read how to move forward, it seems straightforward and I am planning on converting one of our closed stores tomorrow. 

Has anyone run into any 'gotchas' or unexpected behavior when moving to a combined network?

[PhilipDAth]

I would definitely put the MXs and MSs (firewalls and switches into a single network).

The WiFi in retail is a bigger question.  One of my big retailers has them in a single network (even though this is not optimal for AutoRF) because of how the guest wifi analytics works.  Having them in a single network allows you to easily see the stats across all of your stores - rather than per store.

You can still get the other information either way - but it depends a bit on weather you use analytics, and how you want to see that data.

Also if you are using a third party system for analytics for marketing it may impact how they interact together.

If you don't use any third party integrations for WiFi and aren't using or don't care about the analytics - then put the APs into the same networks as the MX and MS.

[YellowKLR]

We run thrift stores, it is a light load,no analytics needed. 

Each store has an MX, one MS  and one MR.

[Nash · Accepted solution]

Agree on collapsing MX and MS per physical site into the same combined network.

Meraki recommends putting wireless into the same combined network for that physical location, due to some of the RF math they crunch behind the scenes. That's what my company has gone for. We push SSID changes thru the wonders of API.

For moving your switches, keep in mind that they'll lose most settings. It's pretty easy to copy over basic switchport configs. I make no promises here but I used this script when I had to move L2 switches around. (Busy or I'd add better comments... sorry!) I remember it working fairly painlessly.

You could grab the idea I used and make it into something that'll do more than one switch at a go. I was only moving four or five switches, so I didn't bother at the time.

L3 interfaces, you'll have to recreate. But if these are stores, I'd be willing to bet you haven't got L3 switches everywhere.

[PhilipDAth]

>For moving your switches, keep in mind that they'll lose most settings. 

In your case you shouldn't be moving switches, but combining existing networks (to form combined networks).  So the settings should "stick".

https://documentation.meraki.com/zGeneral_Administration/Organizations_and_Networks/Combined_Dashboa... 

[YellowKLR]

* In your case you shouldn't be moving switches, but combining existing networks
All of our switches are in 1 network, and all of our APs are in another network - so I will be creating a combined network by moving the MR and MS for the site into the same network as the MX. 

Example: For our B'ville store, I was expecting to take the store's MS from RM-Switches and MR from RM-APs and move them to the existing MX-Bville network.

[PhilipDAth]

>All of our switches are in 1 network,

Ok, then @Nash is right.  Any config on the switch ports will be lost and you'll need to re-apply it.

[DarrenOC]

Yep, we’ve done this on a few occasions and lost device configs. Simple make a note offline of the config and re-apply when you’ve moved them into the combined network.

[rhbirkelund]

Before moving forward with your consolidation of networks, you could consider looking into the Dashboard API.

You could create some backup scripts that would get the current configuration of the switches, combine the MX and MS networks, and post the configuration back to the new newly combined network. Perhaps with a few changes tot the configuration.

[YellowKLR]

* You could create some backup scripts

I looked at the API documentation when someone referred to using to manage SSIDs, using it is going to be a learning curve for me.
I want to move just the first network and make sure everything works as it is supposed to. I'll wait to do more stores until that first one opens up again, just to make sure nothing goes wonky.

Hopefully by that time I'll have learned about the API and can make use of it.

[DarrenOC]

Just a thought.....once you combine the devices into one network and they lose their config will they at this point also lose cloud connectivity?

[PhilipDAth]

>will they at this point also lose cloud connectivity?

They will remain cloud connected.  They don't loose their "local status page" config that provides them their config to connect to the cloud.  If they get that IP config via DHCP they will continue to get that config via DHCP.

[YellowKLR]

Thank you for all of your responses - I am new to the community, and appreciate how helpful everyone is!