Meraki devices backup eviences

[Nickola]

Dear all, 

My company compliance asking me to give them evidences of backup system from Meraki system. (switch configuration backup etc...)

At the moment, i have sent them that there is no evidences due to cloud system.

what proof can i provide to my company compliance to answer them about this subject ? 

In advance, thank you for your feedback.

Nickola. 

[DHAnderson]

Nickola,

Meraki equipment all have local configurations that operate independent of the Meraki Cloud.  The cloud stores the configuration and reflects changes from the dashboard down to the device.

If you factory reset a device,  you can connect it back up the the network and it will download the latest configuration from the cloud.  If a device dies, and you replace it with a new device of the same model, once added to the dashboard, it will download the latest configuration.

I would call that evidence of configuration backup from a device perspective.  

[PhilipDAth]

You could ask the same question for Office 365, Google, etc.  I'm not aware of any public cloud provider giving information about their internal backup strategy.

You could try using my backup script to take an offline backup of many of your settings.

https://www.ifm.net.nz/cookbooks/meraki-backup.html 

[BlakeRichardson]

You could contact support and see if they could provide any information. I doubt they can provide detailed information for security reasons but they could confirm that your dashboard data is spread across multiple data centres. 

[GreenMan]

I like to describe the Meraki way as creating the backup first.   If you think about it, you create the original configuration in Dashboard first - which is then pushed down to the 'backup' device;   in your case, a switch.

[KarstenI]

But if two systems are synchronized or one replicates to the other, then we can not call this a backup. If the dashboard config gets screwed up, the switch will be screwed up seconds later automatically.

[GreenMan]

It depends what you mean by 'screwed up' ?   Dashboard verifies configuration changes before it applies them and it applies changes only when an Admin applies a change.

If an admin applies a configuration that, after the event, proves to be the wrong one, all the changes are documented in  Organization > Monitor > Change log

You could look at using the API for backup, as discussed here:   https://community.meraki.com/t5/Switching/Backup-config-MS225/td-p/44196

I'm not sure 100% of parameters available in UI can be read an applied via API as yet, but the list is extensive and growing:   https://developer.cisco.com/meraki/api-v1/ 

[RDD]

Hello Nickola,

Have you found out anymore information on backups?  We are facing the same issue with auditors and customers wanting this information.  The concerns are what if we get hacked or a disgruntled employee deletes production networks or even worse the Org.

Thanks,

[KarstenI · Accepted solution]

I don't think that you can get a good answer here as there is nothing like a backup in the Dashboard. If you want to achieve something a backup is for, like your mentioned getting back to operation after a disaster, there is only one way:

Generate a script that builds all your networks via API and document exactly where manual adjustment is needed if the API can't do it.

[Nickola]

Hello, 

unfortunately, as mentioned below, there is no evidences due to cloud strategy...

For now i will give all those answers from this topic to my company compliance.

Thank you all for your reply 🙂

Nickola