Happy Tuesday, folks! Hopefully you got a chance this morning at Cisco Live, whether in person or remote, to listen to Chuck’s keynote, where Todd Nightingale announced the launch of cloud-managed Catalyst. For the very first time, you’ll be able to monitor and manage your Catalyst networks in the Meraki dashboard.
Let me guess, you’re thinking: wow that’s pretty cool! Or perhaps: ‘bout time, folks! Either way, we’re fired up that we can finally share this news with you. Allow me to break down the bigger announcement into two sections:
1. Cloud management for Catalyst
With the Meraki dashboard, you can connect to your network from anywhere. You can see traffic flow and rapidly diagnose client issues. And for this launch, we’re bringing the scale and agility of the Meraki dashboard to Catalyst customers.
With cloud monitoring, you’ll be able to see your Catalyst 9500, 9300, and 9200 switches live in the Meraki dashboard. Besides being able to see everything, you’ll also get insights into the topology of your network—every connected client and port-level configuration. You’ll also receive detailed traffic inspection and simple troubleshooting tools. All of this allows you to quickly identify, isolate, and resolve issues at the speed of now. And later this year you’ll be able to manage and configure your Catalyst 9300 switches in the Meraki dashboard. Check out this community post for a high-level overview of this portion of the announcement.
2. Converged Wi-Fi 6E access points
Talk about a dynamic duo! We’re merging the scale of the #1 cloud-management dashboard with the power of the #1 network hardware platform in Catalyst. With this launch, you’ll see we have three new access points in our Wi-Fi 6E portfolio, and all of them can be setup to be managed by either the Meraki dashboard (cloud) or a Cisco 9800 wireless controller and Cisco DNA center (on prem). All of our new APs are still 6E, sassy and classy, just like our MR57 that launched a few months back. Visit our Next Gen Wi-Fi page to see more information on the Catalyst CW9166, CW9164 and CW9162.
Speaking of classy… here’s a bonus topic I NEED to mention here, which is the launch of our newly updated Meraki dashboard!
Our team has taken everything our customers love about the dashboard and made it faster, more accessible, and more intuitive at every step. We've dramatically improved every aspect of network management with a modernized layout, intuitive workflows, and directly actionable insights.
What’s next?
No matter where your network lives - on-prem, in the cloud, or living its best hybrid life, we’re with you the entire way. Need advice on where to start? Give us a call. Have a mix of Catalyst and Meraki and want to get started on cloud monitoring through all of your locations? Check out our Quick Start Guide.
For organizations with Catalyst switches at the core of their network, making the move to the cloud has never been easier or more accessible. The Meraki dashboard is truly their bridge to the cloud and the first step is cloud monitoring. We’ve even set up a Community Group here for you to join, learn and interact with peers.
And if you’re at Cisco Live, swing by the World of Solutions booth or Meraki lounge to see demos of this launch and more.
