Replacing MX84-HW with Catalyst C9300-24U

[BrentB]

Hello,

New to Meraki and completely new to the switch line. we have a location that we have acquired that is a complete Meraki shop. They have a MX-84 that in turn has several MS120s attached. The MX has several VLANs that they use internally today. We are a complete Cisco ship and in the process of migrating them over to our corporate network. We will now have the SD-WAN device with a Catalyst c9300 as the core with all the associated VLAN definitions. We were told there would be no issue in the VLAN changes and getting everything to play well.

I have been researching more details in exactly how to make this happen. Seems the VLAN / VTP is a bit different on the Meraki side from what I am  used to on the Catalyst side. So far I have come across the following document about Integrating MS access into Cisco VTP and this make it look like I simply make sure pruning is off? Do I simply define the trunk port on the Catalyst like I normally do and connect to the Meraki and have access to VLANs defined? Any reference docs or anything to help me further figure this out?

I guess a temp solution would be to reconfigure the MX to connect to the SD-WAN box and turn off firewall functions and the like? Kinda in a brainstorm optional design type mode in figuring this out.

Thanks in advance ...

Brent

[Mloraditch]

Meraki has no concept of a VLAN Database, it just passes all vlans allowed on the trunk. So yes you just connect the IOS based switch to the Merakis and just make sure your native vlan/allowed vlans match and they will all pass properly.

Do take a look at this regarding STP interoperability between Meraki and regular Cisco: https://documentation.meraki.com/MS/Port_and_VLAN_Configuration/Configuring_Spanning_Tree_on_Meraki_...

There is a template for IOS based config that cohabitates with the MS120s.

[PhilipDAth]

Note that the MX84 is a security appliance and also used to supply Internet access.  I am assuming you just want to migrate the layer 3 routing onto the C9300.

First tip, since you will also be operating with MS120s, is to change to mst for spannig tree on your C9300.

spanning-tree mode mst

MS switches have no concept of VTP.

While MS switches have no concept of a VLAN database, you can have a VLAN database in the dashboard using the "Named VLANs" feature.  You might want to enable this to make it easier for yourself.

https://documentation.meraki.com/MS/Port_and_VLAN_Configuration/Named_VLANs_in_MS_Configurations

You can enabled named VLANs under the "Early Access" part of the Meraki Dashboard.

You could also consider enabling cloud monitoring in the Meraki Dashboard of your C9300.

https://documentation.meraki.com/Cloud_Monitoring_for_Catalyst/Onboarding/Cloud_Monitoring_for_Catal...

[GIdenJoe]

By default all ports are configured as switch mode trunk, switchport trunk native vlan 1, switch trunk vlan allowed all.

Since every possible VLAN ID is always available if you really want to prune VLANs on the trunks you can either create the VLANs in the VLAN profiles page (network wide -> VLAN profiles) if this feature has been enabled en add them to a VLAN group.  Then you can easily add that group to each trunk ports you want to configure.

Also, very important bit.  Use the switching -> switchports page to control all the Meraki ports in your network and make sure they all have descriptive tags so you can always select multiple ports from multiple switches and configure them in 1 go and consistently.