Integration of existing Cisco Network to Cisco Meraki

[kami]

Our company is going to open an office in another country. We are using Cisco devices in all our office in different countries. I just want to know.

If we start on the new sites with Cisco Meraki. How the existing Cisco Network infrastructure will work together with Meraki?

How will this work with the integration between Cisco and Cisco Meraki?

Are there any particular things to consider while implementing all this?

Any comment and suggestion are welcome. Thank you all in advance.

Regards,

Kam

[AjitKumar]

Hi Kam,

In a nutshell I understand the primary difference between both the solutions is "How they are managed ?".

Cisco Meraki is 100% Cloud Managed solution. We are provided with a web portal "Dashboard" and are supposed to do most of the configuration, management and monitoring from there. [Except a very few configuration of providing cloud connectivity, Port Speed, Trunk / Access Mode etc from the Local Console Page]

Coming to integration it depends on the product you are planning to deploy.

Ex.
MR (Meraki Access Points) comes with their own "Cloud Based Controller" and Hence cannot be Managed by "On Prem WLAN Controller" or Vice Versa. Ideally it is not recommended to have both the solution on the Same Floor.

MX (Meraki Security Appliance) along with many other features brings in "AutoVPN". If you have Meraki HW both the ends setting up site to site VPN  is 2 or 3 clicks. However it is very much possible construct a Site to Site Tunnel with Non Meraki Hardware too.

MS (Meraki Switches) apart from manageability portion I believe most of the features and protocols are supported and can work together with Cisco Switches.

[BlakeRichardson]

@kami  Working together really depends on your exisiting networks configuration and what services i.e. VPN you use. 

Meraki is certainly a excellent option if you are having to remotely support the new office but without knowing more about your exisiting setup I cant answer much more than that. 

[PhilipDAth]

>How the existing Cisco Network infrastructure will work together with Meraki?

Like it does now, but easier.  🙂

Seriously, it is much easier managing something with a nice HTML5 interface rather than having to physically get connectivity to the site and using SSH.

[MarcP]

Even If we just use several MX / MS / MR devices within our Cisco classic enviroment, from my site I can say it´s working very well without any big issues ever happend. 

[Aaron_Wilson]

Kami - we did a very slow deployment of Meraki to kick the tires. Here was our basic approach:

1) add headends to data center to get remote Meraki networks onto the WAN
2) network team puts Merakis at their house to test various configs and stability
3) expanded testing to other IT units
4) install a Meraki MX at a "Cisco network" site to use as a backup WAN link for primary MPLS router
5) install Meraki MX/MS/MR at new small offices where the Meraki is faster, easier, and cheaper to deploy (business internet vs MPLS)

We have halted here for now. For any larger sites we would need to make some internal changes regarding our management contract so our msp could support the larger sites. So far Meraki is working well, but if you are used to a lot of the advanced features you get in the Cisco gear, it may not be the right choice. You have to analyze how complicated your Cisco gear is and if Meraki offers all those bells and whistles.

[timeshimanshu]

Since you are already working on cisco traditional network. Meraki is cisco cloud based solution. you can change/monitor your network from anywhere. Trust me you will love the technology.

Go for it.

But to keep one thing in mind which can panic you at the time of running your legacy + Meraki Network simultaneously.

Don't choose Native vlan other than vlan 1 between your Legacy uplink device to Meraki. Between Meraki you can choose native vlan anyone but between your legacy and Meraki it will cause an issue.

[BrechtSchamp · Accepted solution]

In addition to the excellent responses so far I wanted to mention that Meraki doesn't support PVST(+)/MSTP/Rapid-PVST and the like. So if you're running those protocols in the other site and you want to also use Meraki switches on that site, check out this page for instructions on how to let them co-exist:

https://documentation.meraki.com/MS/Deployment_Guides/Advanced_MS_Setup_Guide

[PhilipDAth]

Well it may not support those spanning tree protocols specifically, but it does play very well with Cisco Enterprise MSTP when using single instance mode.

[GIdenJoe]

I do hope they will support MST at some in the future. In scenario’s where clients don’t want to pay for stacked switches in the core you have a single STP topo without the possibility to load balance VLANs across it.