Meraki MS Switches, Any compatibility concerns?

[JakeHez]

Hello, just checking for any insight on this topic

I recently started to deploy Meraki MS series switches to all of our networks. Some are manufacturing facilities. Our testing went great and our pilot deployments went without issues. However as we roll it out to some more complicated manufacturing facilities, we've now seen a few issues that we'd like to fully evaluate before continuing. Some community feedback would help.

In a recent deployment, some industrial switches were not able to get connectivity via the Meraki MS225 switches. The industrial switch was not managed by my team so we didn't have general management access, and this was a remote deployment so we weren't able to fully troubleshoot this on site. However, working through any possible layer 1 and layer 2 issues didn't resolve the issue. Port was forwarding, learning MACs, but no traffic was passing. A temporary workaround was to add in one of our older Cisco native switches to reconnect the device. Patched into that, it worked perfectly fine.

Adding to this we've noticed a few other devices that didn't regain connectivity after migrating to these switches, which struck us as odd. Another note is that we're getting the feeling that these switches are much more... "sensitive?" to faulty cabling than the cisco native equipment we were previously using. The amount of client-side cabling we're having to replace because of issues after migrating switches in the cabinets (and not touching anything client-side) is surprising. We like the visibility and the opportunity to resolve the issues, but we're left somewhat curious about this.

So my question is, has anyone else encountered any compatibility issues with these switches? Any similar notes on sensitivity to cabling issues? Any other odd switching behavior? Any insight would be appreciated.

[alemabrahao]

I've already done some installations in the most diverse environments and I've never seen any issues of incompatibility. Any chance of a configuration being incorrect on the industrial switches?

[JakeHez]

Great feedback, glad to hear you've had some success with diverse environments. Makes me feel much better already!

Absolutely could be something incorrect on these industrial switches since we didn't get to fully check on site. Though, it does seem to be completely unmanaged. Auto-negotiates and they aren't tagging anything, we're tagging everything. So, our gut tells us there's not much mystery to the config on the device. We're assuming it was installed by a mechanical engineer with little IT knowledge who assembled the production machines. 

Regardless we are going to grab one of these devices and fully test it in our lab to be sure. But yeah, at the same time we're just getting a feel if there is something to this on the Meraki side. Thanks again for the feedback!

[DarrenOC]

The only issues I’ve experienced to date are around some higher end switches not negotiating down to 10mbps on their switchports.  Like yourself we had to put in some interim legacy catalysts.

[PhilipDAth]

Were these switches deployed s layer 2 or layer 3 switches?

If layer 3, so the MAC address of the default gateway also changed then you'll need to clear the ARP cache on the device.  The easiest way will be to power cycle the industrial switch.

There is a chance this was a spanning tree issue and there is a loop in the network.  Try making the Meraki switch the root of the spanning tree (priority 0) - or try making it not the root (maybe priority 60000).

Were you industrial switches running any exotic protocols like REP, to make a resident ring?
https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/switches/lan/cisco_ie4010/software/release/15-2_4_EC/configura... 

[cmr]

We have had some PoE issues and 10Mb problems with MS355s, but no issues with MS225s, they seem quite tolerant.  As for cabling, the Meraki switches seem keener to try higher speeds and do expose flaky cabling more than the Cisco 3850s, 3750s and 2960s we've been replacing.

[BlakeRichardson]

I've only had issues with older patch leads and MR connected to MS but nothing with an MS device directly. 

[RMCC0]

We have had a couple devices we are not able to make work with Meraki switches (MS350-24X).  One is a Sensaphone Web600 environmental sensor, and the other, a Crestron re-branded Dell Windows-based appliance for a Zoom Room.

We have not dug too deeply into the issue, beyond the obvious GUI settings (speed/ duplex, access/ trunk, et al), but have not had any success.

For the sensor, we have left it on the old switch, cascaded to a Meraki. A bit of a waste, there.  The Zoom Room appliance we made to work with the Meraki switch using a USB Ethernet adapter... only the built-in adapter is not compatible.  Of course, the built-in Ethernet port does work with our Catalyst 9400 switches.

There may be some other settings on the Windows appliance we can toy with once credentials are handed down by the installers, yet out of the box - not compatible. 

[Prestont]

So far, the only ports i had issues is with PLC's or Alarm Panels not auto negotiate to the correct speed, but manual drop it down and see what it will link up as, and then it works just fine.