MX65 v MX68

[RumorConsumer]

Im doing an upgrade here this week. My line is 250/250 and Im getting the advanced security license which wouldn't be supported at full bandwidth with the 65. I know this is a silly question but I like to know from people who have used both - will it be noticeably different in any other way? Does anybody know the actual differences in clock speed and hardware under the hood? 

[BlakeRichardson]

The increased clock speed is usually to cover the increased throughput speeds. You might notice a very small difference but nothing to write home about. 

[RumorConsumer]

Sweet thanks. This network already cruises. 

[cmr]

@RumorConsumer the MX68 supports AnyConnect and NBAR, the MX65 may never...

[RumorConsumer]

Anyconnect Ill probably never use but NBAR sounds interesting. Is it just on by default as a method for inspecting traffic?

[Bruce]

Not quite on by default, but almost. There's a whole bunch of conditions for combined and mixed networks, https://documentation.meraki.com/General_Administration/Cross-Platform_Content/Network-Based_Applica... but no mention of any restriction on MX64/65. As along as it runs MX16+ it seems it should work (yet to test it). Although there could be something in release notes that I've missed.

[Rekun]

I can confirm NBAR working on a MX64 with MX16 firmware.

AnyConnect should be comming to both MX64 and MX65

https://documentation.meraki.com/MX/AnyConnect_on_the_MX_Appliance

[RumorConsumer]

I did the swap

Easy peasy

But nothing can prepare you for the moment of telling dashboard yes disassociate my security device while 50 people wait for the internet to come back on... or not

[Nakul]

I know this post is a few years old, and I wanted to comment on the firmware differences between the MX65 and MX68.

The MX65's maximum runnable firmware version is up to MX 18.1xxx, as per this documentation that discusses product firmware version restrictions. It cannot be upgraded to MX 18.2+ firmware or any newer major release versions. If networks with these devices are set to run newer firmware versions (such as 18.2), they will automatically use an MX 18.1 firmware version instead.

The MX68, however, can run the current stable firmware version MX 18.2+ and even the beta release version of MX 19.1.x. This enables features such as Firewall Logging, Trusted Traffic Exclusions (Advanced Security License required), Routed mode eBGP, and more! You can see the stable release firmware features for 18.2.X linked here and the beta release firmware features for MX 19.1.X. over here.

Hope this helps!