Meraki Now 4 Hr and 2 Hr - what does it mean?

[Orange_Rouge]

Hi there.  So I'm not clear on the Meraki Now service:

Meraki Now 24 x 7 x 4 and Meraki Now 24 x 7 x 2:  "Advance Replacement on a Two-Hour Response basis" or "Advance Replacement on a Four-Hour Response basis"

What does this actually mean?  Cisco/Meraki will respond within 2 / 4 hours, or a part will be shipped within 2 / 4 hours, or a part will arrive (depending on country) within 2 or 4 hours?

Appreciate the help.

[BlakeRichardson]

Hi Read is as Meraki Now 24 x 7 x 2 means the product will be in your hands within 2 hours and within 4 hours for Meraki Now 24 x 7 x 4

https://meraki.cisco.com/lib/pdf/meraki_now_solution_guide.pdf

[PhilipDAth]

Note that the service is not available in every area.  Their is a service availability matrix your favourite Cisco reseller can check to see what options are available to you.

[Nick]

Does anyone have a good story of using Meraki Now? i.e failed MX and the heavens opened within two hours with a new one?

[PhilipDAth]

@Nick, I'm not sure if you have priced up that option - but (at least in my country) over three years, it is cheaper to buy a warm (or cold if you prefer) spare and keep it on site.  I have never sold it as a result.

[Nick]

Thanks Philip - Thats the same for us really, I was just wondering if anyone had taken the plunge?

[BlakeRichardson]

@Nick  I agree with @PhilipDAth  if your budget allows you are better to have something onsite in a box waiting to go. If your network is that crucial that you are considering a 2 hour replacement hot spares is a better option.

[MerakiDave]

@Orange_Rouge Meraki Now can be worthwhile for customers who may not have highly critical up-time requirements or SLAs to uphold, and leverage Meraki Now strategically where doubling up lots of infrastructure becomes cost-prohibitive and a few hours of downtime is acceptable. 

Like others have stated, if up-time is critical then you'll likely want to deploy warm-spare configurations, or at least have on-site cold spares.  Or if you're running a wireless network with hundreds of APs for example, you'll likely have a couple shelf spares without the need for anything more than NBD hardware replacement because the wireless can be self-healing around a failed AP. 

So Meraki Now seems to be most popular with MS and MX.  Sometimes it's the NBD component that customers want to short circuit with Meraki Now... if a switch fails on a Friday morning before a 3-day weekend, you might get the replacement switch the same day instead of the following Tuesday.  Sometimes it's the on-site support component that customers want to buy into, and the 4-hour hardware replacement is more of a bonus for them.  

[Orange_Rouge]

Let's expand on this just a bit - here is a supplementary question:

For the OnSite field engineer option,  does the equipment still get shipped to site, or is it that they bring it with them?

Particularly for the 4 hour option, interested in understanding how this works.

[LC]

Hi,

I ve got reply from Cisco about RMA process with Meraki now option.
Equipment is shipped to site directly. Local Cisco LSC contacts end customer to plan a RDV to send a Cisco tech on site for equipment replacement.
After equipment replacement, end customer is responsible to send back failed equipment to cisco

I hope it will help

[Jim5]

Where do we obtain a list of the CCW SKUs? 

[Bruce]

@Jim5, you can either ‘Add Services’ to a hardware line item in CCW and use it to guide you through the selection of Meraki Now services. Or you can use Cisco’s Service Finder, https://connectthedots.cisco.com/connectdots/serviceWarrantyFinderRequest?fl=sf, enter the hardware part number (SKU, e.g. MX84-HW) and it will return a list of the services available.