[Early Orderability] Catalyst Meraki 9300 - Simply Powerful.

[Minyi]

Introducing Catalyst Meraki 9300! 

The Catalyst Meraki 9300 Network Switch unifies the world's most powerful switching hardware with the cloud simplicity of the Meraki experience, helping you unleash operational efficiency from day 0 to day n. With the true Meraki zero-touch provisioning experience you know and love, large-scale deployments can be completed in minutes, saving time and cost without a dedicated on-site IT staff.

Please read our announcement post for details. 

[Inderdeep]

Awesome, Thanks for the update @Minyi 

[PhilipDAth]

Scary.  Promise us this won't be another MS390.

[DarrenOC]

I still wouldn’t go anywhere near those MS390’s. 

Will wait and see how these pan out.

[Nico_Darrow]

Meraki did a great service by splitting the firmware trains between classic and catalyst switches. The two firmware, MS16(traditional) and CS16(catalyst) are the same train but specific to the hardware platform. A great number of bugs revolved around mixing of these two code-trains. Most of the issues with the MS390 have been resolved around MS15 firmware and with CS16 it's only gotten better. 

With the MS390 firmware stabilized, we're seeing alot of adoption of CS16 in the field, it's quickly becoming a GA candidate. If you haven't upgraded yet, i highly recommend so. The -M hardware should ship with CS16, so we won't have to worry about any factory-firmware issues that impacted the MS390.

The new c9300-M hardware is a whole new software stack based on the newer firmware, and have been getting very positive reviews from the field already on EFT. 

This is the Meraki way, we learn, refine and improve perpetually. Wrangling the Catalyst into dashboard was a challenge, not without some pitfalls, but with the dedicated firmware and hard work from engineering... we're starting to reap the benefits. 

Thanks to all that have stuck with us on the platform, and for those that are still waiting on the -M.... we look forward to proving our resolve. 

_Nico

[RobinsonRoca]

This sounds like the MS390, and the Catalyst 9300-M are the exact same platform, but shipping with newer software.  Can you please confirm that architecturally the MS390 and the Catalyst 9300-M are the same, the difference is the SKU, the model name, and the shipping software?

Does it run the software differently, does it operate differently?  Is there any real difference between these two platforms?

[Nico_Darrow]

They are architecturally both Catalyst 9300 hardware. The MS390 has a different BIOS' and some cosmetic differences(lacks front USB for instance). With the -M it is identical to the c9300 outside of some different stickers showing the Cloud-ID(Meraki Serial).

Software wise, if the switches are on the save version, say CS15.21.1. They both will be running the same underlaying operating system IOS-XE and container code. We do restrict the -M from installing deprecated firmware. The best example of this is you can have a MS390 running deprecated MS11 firmware, which the c9300-M can't run.

But you are correct, they are architecturally the same. With the shipping firmware on the -M being the most stable firmware with all the lessons learned baked in from the MS390.