MS 15.18 Release Candidate is now available for all switch customers via the Meraki dashboard. We have made significant quality improvements and added lots of new features in this release. It brings powerful network security and analytics capabilities, streamlined policy management, and enhanced PoE features.

Head on over to the firmware management page and schedule your upgrades now.  

To reduce confusion between the new Cisco+ Secure Connect product and the existing MS and MR SecureConnect feature, we are renaming the port configuration capability. We will begin referring to the automated process of securely provisioning MR Access Points when directly connected to Meraki MS Switches as SecurePort.  

Please note that this name change will impact the following API end-point, where customers will need to modify the key ‘secureConnect’ to ‘securePort’ on their API calls:

1.https://developer.cisco.com/meraki/api-v1/#!get-network-settings 

2.https://developer.cisco.com/meraki/api-v1/#!get-device-switch-ports-statuses 

Learn more 

Read more about SecurePort here.

Keeping track of your firmware update isn’t a glamorous task, but it’s a necessary one that can consume bandwidth you probably don’t have. Perhaps you’ve checked out the improved Staged Upgrades feature, but how can you monitor upgrade progress at the individual switch level? “Does this switch have an upgrade scheduled?”, “Does anything need my attention?”. These are the common questions we all have when updating. 

We now have per-device upgrade status for each switch in a network.

Rolled out on Oct 31st (no trick, only the treat!), firmware upgrade status provides context on the upgrade status for each switch in a network, to reassure admins that firmware upgrades are progressing as scheduled. Update status flags will appear automatically for all switch networks whenever an upgrade is scheduled or in progress. 👏👏

We are thrilled to introduce the public preview of the improved MS staged upgrades! 

What’s new? 

Staged upgrades improves on the previous version with:

• Reusable upgrade groups
• Easier rescheduling
• Better upgrade progress monitoring
• Ability to use the API to manage and schedule staged upgrades

• A single-page workflow so the entire upgrade can be managed from the org-wide firmware page.
• Switch stacks are treated as a single logical unit, rather than assigning individual stack member switches to upgrade stages.

Putting endpoints to sleep to save energy doesn’t normally play well with 802.1X. You often have to make a choice between compromising security or keeping devices awake 24/365. With more pressure on IT energy savings on the one hand and rising cybersecurity threats expected to continue on the other hand, network pros (like you) are getting a seemingly impossible mission. 

Great news! We are excited to share the public preview of the new MS 802.1X Control Direction (1XCD)! This public preview is now available for all orgs on the switch access policies page. 

Public preview allows all customers to test the feature and leverage Meraki support if they encounter issues. However, this feature is still considered “beta” and customers should be prepared to test for unexpected issues that may occur before deciding to roll out the feature to critical networks.

This Meraki dashboard feature is designed to reduce time to resolution for our customers by easing manual tasks, simplifying the configuration process, and dynamically detecting errors.

The MS 15 beta is now available for download in the Meraki dashboard. Head on over to the firmware management page to schedule your upgrades. 

Check out the article in Documentation to get the step-by-step instructions.

But simply:

1- Login to your Meraki dashboard.

2- Visit the Firmware Upgrade page in the dashboard and schedule a firmware upgrade, selecting the MS 15 beta version.

3- By heading to Network Wide > General and turning the “Try beta firmware” to Yes on any individual networks, you’ll be the first to automatically have new beta firmware scheduled for upgrade in the future. Note that this is per-network so you could opt-in your lab and a low-risk site without affecting your production areas elsewhere.

 ** Always be sure to read the release notes for any notable changes or behavioral differences

With MS 15, you’ll get powerful new network security and analytics capabilities, streamlined policy management, and enhanced PoE capabilities. Let’s get into the specifics: 

New in the MS390 only:

• 802.3bt - Enable your network with the industry standard for 60 Watts of PoE per port to power next-generation Access Points, Cameras, and Smart building automation
• NBAR based Netflow export - Built for Cisco Secure Network Analytics and many other flow collectors, providing full NBARv2 traffic analysis
• Encrypted Traffic Analytics - Get in-depth analysis of traffic without decryption for use with Cisco Secure Network and Cloud Analytics
• StackPower status - Verify and monitor StackPower status and StackPower budgeting information for the respective switch in a StackPower pool

New in MS390 but already available in other MS switches:

• Critical/Failed Auth - Provide limited access VLAN assignment for a failed authentication
• Group Policy ACLs - Per-session 802.1X inbound ACL enforcement

New in both MS390 and others:

• FIPS mode - now available for those requiring FIPS compliance - please contact your Meraki rep if required

• Named VLANs - Send VLAN names rather than ID numbers from the RADIUS server and let the switch automatically map to the appropriate VLAN ID

• Dynamic config for Voice VLAN - Further streamlining policy management across networks

Get a jump on your competition, prepare your next-generation network, and shape the market in your way. For our part, Meraki provides a seamless pathway to Beta test this software with unparalleled support along the way.

With the MX16 firmware release, NBAR will be available for full-stack enablement! 🚀

New capabilities and visibility are now available to the Meraki dashboard to help simplify troubleshooting. Users can now pinpoint issues more quickly, and ensure excellent connectivity for clients. These updates are designed to not only provide insights about the health of Wi-Fi clients, but also to provide end-to-end visibility. Enhanced visibility will now allow for immediate identification of whether wireless is problematic, or if, for example, an upstream device is misconfigured.