Meraki MX67C - 4G primary link, seperate WAN for management. Possible or not?

[richardboer]

For our guest network we are currently using a solution using D-Link 4G routers with a dedicated 4G data sim with enough data per month to allow for this.

However we are seeing that these routers simply aren't stable enough and require almost daily rebooting or just drop out because for example the option: roaming is turned off.

Seeing we have about 30 offices in the Netherlands that have this solution for our guest wifi we are looking into using the Cisco Meraki MX67C routers as a replacement for the D-Link routers.

But seeing we can have problems with 4G and we have a centralized IT it would be a lot easier for us to just have a central management system (hence on why Cisco Meraki).

Now for the configuration my thought would be as following:

1 WAN port connected to our Corporate MPLS network so that the devices can be managed from the Cisco cloud and use the 4G connection as primary internet connection for our guest network.

Firewall rules will be implemented to make sure that guest (or any LAN traffic for that matter) won't be able to connect to our corporate network. Only connections that are allowed are from the Meraki itself for the cloud management.

The problem with this is: The Meraki website says you can't use 4G as a primary connection if you have the WAN port connected.

So my question is:
Would it be possible to route all traffic from subnet X (for example: 10.5.20.0/24) through the 4G connection and have management run over our MPLS network?

The MPLS cloud has a dedicated internet breakout so it will have a WAN connection available.

[ww]

documentation is correct. 

you can't use 4G as active connection if one of the wan ports have active internet. you also can not make a rule to forward subnet x to the 4G. 

[MerakiDave · Accepted solution]

Confirmed, Meraki SD-WAN solutions at the moment are for WAN1 and WAN2 and do not include cellular, the cellular is for wireless WAN backup in the event both WAN1/WAN2 circuits are down.  Did you already have your MPLS on WAN1 of the MX and the direct Internet access (via cellular) come into WAN2 as an Ethernet handoff?  With that, you can configure your WAN1/WAN2 flow preferences.  But perhaps that was the whole issue, that the cellular device has been unreliable and so your WAN2 is going in and out?  

[richardboer]

Well we haven't actually gotten the devices yet. Currently we use a D-Link DWR-921 for our guest wifi, but those things are pretty unstable. And you can only manage them if you connect a machine to it and not all our locations have laptops for example.

So the idea was to replace the D-Link for a Meraki MX67C and use the internal 4G modem for the primary WAN connection and use our MPLS network for management in case the 4G connection drops out for example or we just wanna change configurations regarding the 4G connection. For example we changed the option for roaming on a few D-Links but i had to go on-site to change it. Seeing we have over 30 locations in the Netherlands i am looking for a centralized system to manage it all.

We are currently also looking at Cradlepoint seeing they seem to offer us what we are looking for. Sort of hoping Meraki does allow this in the future seeing my personal preference would still be to use Meraki.

So in short: No Meraki devices in use yet, currently using consumer grade equipment and looking for a cloud management enterprise solution that will use 4G as primary and allow management through a MPLS connection.