Inquiry Regarding Bandwidth Utilization Monitoring on Meraki

[Alic-Antunez]

Hi everyone,

I understand that there is no native feature in the Meraki Dashboard for monitoring circuit Bandwidth Utilization on specific timeframes. We are currently using LiveAction (LiveNX) as a third-party monitoring tool for various metrics, reports, and automated alerts. However, we have been unable to integrate LiveAction with Meraki in a way that allows us to monitor Bandwidth Utilization for our Internet circuits across different timeframes (using SNMP v3).

Given our need to track WAN Bandwidth and plan for WAN Capacity effectively, could you please advise if there is any recommended solution or best practice for obtaining and monitoring this specific metric (Internet circuit Bandwidth Utilization)? Any guidance on possible integration methods or workarounds would be greatly appreciated.

[RaphaelL]

Hi ,

I think the best way to do that is with the API or with Meraki Insight.

To be honest I don't know what Meraki is doing with Insight , nothing new or inovating in the past 2 years but this might be your best bet. A product with such potential but such a disapointement. Can't say I'm surprised tho.

[DarrenOC]

Yep, used for a handful of customers a few years back. Promised a lot but no progress over the years. Thousand Eyes I guess gives the same features.

[MartinS]

To continue on from @RaphaelL excellent suggestion on the API, if you want an easy life the best place to look for this is the Meraki Marketplace - there are lots of apps that'll do what you need, and the ones the with the 'Meraki Picks' tick are really really good at it 🙂

Cisco Meraki Marketplace | Cisco Meraki

[GreenMan]

As others have indicated, many are now using the API to poll for uplink usage data:   such as https://developer.cisco.com/meraki/api-v1/get-network-appliance-uplinks-usage-history/

A lot will depend on what you want to do with the data & how you want to present it, as to the tools used - from a python script writing to a csv maybe - up to an ecosystem partner application.

Note the data provided gives raw traffic levels.  To put it in context, you'll need to compare to available bandwidth - which you probably have to provide for yourself   (also - configure it for best performance:   https://developer.cisco.com/meraki/api-v1/update-network-appliance-traffic-shaping-uplink-bandwidth/...

The same raw data though is available via SNMP:  https://documentation.meraki.com/General_Administration/Monitoring_and_Reporting/SNMP_Overview_and_C...

For busy environments, you are probably better polling individual MXs directly, even though polling solely the Dashboard is simpler to set up