Cisco Catalyst 9K Switches on Meraki Dashboard

[Matt_Collins]

Hi Meraki Community,

I have heard from a few very good sources that the Cisco Catalyst Switches (have) and will be appearing on the Meraki Dashboard with full functionality and configurations,  I have several customers with Meraki and C9K Mix.  Is there any news on this, apparently this has been seen, is it a special or something appearing in near future (I Hope)

Many thanks

Matt Collins (Meraki Master)

[kYutobi]

That would be awesome, but I haven't heard anything about this.

[ww]

good rumor. full functionality of a catalyst is way beyond meraki ever want to get in the meraki portal.

[jdsilva]

I'm going with fake news on this one.

[MarcP]

Can´t believe this is true...

[Matt_Collins]

I had my  doubts as well as I could not see how it would fit into the dashboard, that is why i reached out,  If it is happening I am not sure Meraki would announce it on here as a response to a question, but who knows what will come back after Cisco's week in Las Vegas as that is where they tend to launch new product/services.  I kind of thought it would be a good idea due to the weaknesses in Meraki Switching and lots of companies mix Meraki Access Switches with Cisco Enterprise.    If it is true then I think it would be a good option - Lets wait and see and if it is true I will await the 1,000,000 Kudos to come flooding in 🙂 lol

[Nash]

Are you sure this wasn't referring to DNA? That'll provide a GUI dashboard for Catalyst 9ks.

[CptnCrnch]

Or somebody camouflaged a Meraki switch to look like a Cat9k? 😇

[JoRett]

My first view of DNA (in 2018) looks like the Meraki Dashboard. I'm pretty sure this had be updated...

So, I hope Meraki will join the DNA...

[BrandonS]

Hard to believe, but it does seem plausible and a good direction.  I have not heard anything like this, but I have heard there will be some new product announcements in a couple weeks..

I suppose almost everyone would rather see AnyConnect support though 😉

[BrandonS]

And if true, I suspect it will come with interesting limitations and maybe just designed for basic monitoring and visibility of a mixed environment, not full configuration.

[PhilipDAth]

> very good sources

You can downgrade those sources.  This will never happen.  They are competing business units for a start.  That would be like Microsoft helping Apple to grow Apple's business.

They are more liekly to be talking about DNAC (DNA Centre).  It can do both types of devices.

[BlakeRichardson]

Hmm.... its a bit late for Aprils fools jokes isn't it.

[Roger_Beurskens]

I'm not going to see this happen......

complete different product lines and use cases....

[redsector]

With DNA you can (in future) manage classic Cisco switches and Meraki switches in one dashboard.

But no classic Cisco switches are compatible with Meraki dashboard.

[cwal21]

😀🤔

Cisco Catalyst Switches Get Meraki Cloud Management - SDxCentral

[Brons2]

I got my 6K Catalysts on the Meraki portal, by ripping them out and replacing them with MS425's.

[JoRett]

Hope Meraki will present an enterprise switch with better debugging possibilities soon.

[lmc-jkelly]

just announced at Cisco Live!

[KevinFor2021]

What exactly was announced.. full management (what limitations?) or just it shows up in the topology map on dashboard correctly?  - do you have a link to the announcement? - thanks

[cwal21]

https://community.meraki.com/t5/Feature-Announcements/Introducing-cloud-management-for-Catalyst/ba-p...

[Rycherd]

"And later this year you’ll be able to manage and configure your Catalyst 9300 switches in the Meraki dashboard."

So will this be "a la MS390" where the ability to access IOS disappears and configuration is only possible via Meraki dashboard?

Or will be Catalyst 9300 management via Merkai in effect modify the IOS config with SSH into IOS remaining available (e.g. for debugging and "advanced config" not available via Meraki dashboard?)

Richard

[Matt_Collins]

Sorry guys but this is where i go into "Smug Mode" and "Told ya so",   I have seen this full working now and it is a great feature, that quite a few of my customer love the idea of

[cwal21]

Agreed, glad to hear it's already working for some, excited to give it a try myself! How does it affect the Meraki licensing aspect since catalyst's don't need licensing if understand correctly?

[cmr]

Once the 'beta' period has expired, you'll need a DNA subscription on the Catalyst switch.

[redsector]

They were not lucky to put the Cisco "classic" into Meraki dashboard with MS390 ....

[ARocha]

Looks like it will happen 🙂
Products - Cloud Management for Catalyst FAQ - Cisco

[lmc-jkelly]

this is true which we all know by now. there are however gotchas that are serious and you might not want to do this as the Cloud Monitoring Tool for Catalyst makes a scad of changes including SNMP v2c using the Community Public. This is bad, bad, bad and our pentester has ordered us to delete the line. SNMP v3 has been out for ages and is always preferred over v2c. and for gods sake why use the hackerfriendly community of Public?  Our CISO says Cisco is not a security company and that sure is one proof of it.