Good morning tech heads .... it's Cyber Security month .... time to join Cisco and myself for a Cisco Designed Chat about Cyber Security for SMBs! Get your questions ready!   Cisco is promoting US National Cyber Security month with a CiscoChat Live next week on Oct 6th @ 1PM EST - "Securely empowering small business success" featuring Mike Storm as well as Hazel from Cisco, Rachel from Tech Data and yours truly! Available to be viewed on ... lots of platforms it seems, Cisco, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter etc .... get connected and get your questions in! Participants:   Hazel Burton, Product Marketing Manager, Cybersecurity Thought Leadership, Cisco Mike Storm, Distinguished Cybersecurity Engineer, Cisco Tim Roberts, IT Network Coordinator/Mgr, Miller Environmental Group Rachel Rovegno, Vendor Business Executive, Cisco Security, Tech Data Links - pick any of them ....   VEH Link: https://video.cisco.com/video/6195694910001 YouTube Link: https://www.youtube.com/cisco Direct link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHjTYQrlfkA Cisco Small Business Twitter Link: https://twitter.com/CiscoSmallBiz   Direct link: https://twitter.com/CiscoSmallBiz/status/1310997856770170880 Cisco Security Twitter Link: https://twitter.com/CiscoSecurity Direct Link: https://twitter.com/CiscoSecure/status/1310998607256932352 Cisco Small Business Facebook Link: https://www.facebook.com/CiscoSmallBusiness/   Direct link: https://www.facebook.com/CiscoSmallBusiness/posts/10157279160446852 Cisco Security Facebook Link: https://www.facebook.com/ciscosecure/ Direct Link: https://www.facebook.com/ciscosecure/posts/10159313853277216 Cisco Live Facebook Link: https://www.facebook.com/ciscoliveus/ Direct Link: https://www.facebook.com/ciscoliveus/posts/10158001185947807 Security LinkedIn Showcase Page Link: https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/cisco-secure/ Direct link: https://www.linkedin.com/events/ciscochatlive-securelyempowerin6718193855147200512/ Cisco Security Community Link: https://community.cisco.com/t5/small-business-support-videos/ciscochat-live-securely-empowering-smal... ... View more

For 2 decades I have worked at various companies from local, regional, national and international in various IT roles, but also have worked with friends, family, or some of their peers, colleagues etc as well to assist in their own IT issues. One of the most challenging to help are the smaller SMBs where they have a need for managed hardware, but the cost is normally well outside of their range so they end up with consumer grade hardware, that does not have the enterprise level tools that make life easier.   Cisco Meraki, has now made Meraki GO to help solve this problem. Enterprise level hardware and software, but for the SMB market. All managed simply through the cloud like Meraki, but from the Meraki GO app. It also has no extra licensing costs for the hardware like regular Meraki does, other than adding an extra software security layer which is licensed per year, but leverages Cisco Umbrella. This is an optional extra though and not necessary, but does add an extra later of protection.   I have a setup for an SMB that uses it to protect their infrastructure, connected between their local fiber and on prem client hardware.         Once you have the primary email address registered to manage the ‘networks’, you log in to the app on an internet connected mobile device and add the hardware as simply as scanning the QR codes using a mobile devices camera. As you connect them, they register and appear in the dashboard. This is the main place to see how the networks are performing, inc high use clients, overall use and then the other links to the specifics, like networks, hardware and settings.       Your networks tab shows the SSIDs you have created and connection brief details, we set up a main network for most devices, and then two other networks, one for ‘employee’ guest called _MerakiGO so it gets them connected, but lower priority speed over  the main network, but they can use BYOD and access company shares, devices, etc. The last network is an actual guest network, that is in NAT mode, so it gets a lower priority, AND is not on the LAN, so no-one would be able to see devices on the network. The fact you can see which users are ‘connected’ vs ‘within proximity’ but not connected means you might be able to find ‘suspicious’ devices that are out there sniffing for your network and all this is available from within each network page as well.               The main dashboard page AND each networks pages also show usage of the network by application, so you can identify where any bottle necks are, or what type of traffic might need to be blocked, optimized or otherwise.       The hardware tab helps you verify connectivity and status of each GO device, and then clicking on each helps you manage each one, either with identifying connected devices, enabling or disabling PoE or using tools to troubleshoot the connections by testing cables, etc. Virtually all the main tools you have with Cisco Meraki, are included in the mobile app.   You can also use the Settings to manage even more, including the configuration of bandwidth limitations on the specific wireless networks you have configured.                 At this point, Cisco Meraki has taken all their best features and packaged them into the Meraki GO platform. The hardware is a little more than consumer grade hardware, but all the features you get are the same premium advanced enterprise level you would with Meraki, at a fraction of the enterpise costs. This is a complete win for SMBs that want to get professional tools at the prices they can afford, with the ease of management from the mobile device interface! ... View more

My name is Tim Roberts, I have been in the IT field for approximately 20yrs now in various roles, from Helpdesk, application support, network, telecom and systems administrator and more. I have worked in multiple industries, from big pharma, to education, to financial and more. Currently I am the IT Network Coordinator at Environmental Products and Services of Vermont/Miller Environmental Group. Essentially emergency services on a larger scale for anything from chemical, biohazard, non-hazardous waste and more.   When I first started EPS of VT, the network was a ‘hot mess’, some branches were on the WAN, some correctly configured, some not, others were having to use Citrix for access to files in the central office for IT in Albany, NY. Some branches had no access other than email, but some at least had Cisco routers in place connecting into an old ASA. Most branches had a mix of consumer or really outdated wireless APs for wifi access, but nothing central or even managed.   We essentially are now ‘full stack’ Meraki.   My first big project back in the fall of 2016 was to ‘fix’ all the issues and try to make a single remote access solution by replacing the aging and about to be EOL/EOS Cisco gear. Our answer to this, was Cisco Meraki. We started in the IT side by upgrading our core routers to an HA pairing of two Meraki MX84s, along with a central access switch of an MS-320-48 and a secondary IT switch of a MS-220-8. We also added 3 MR32 APs which started off our managed wifi solution. We moved from there to the then corporate office in Syracuse, NY and added an MX65, another MS320-48 and 2 MR32 APs. This at least linked IT and corporate, from there we added to multiple other branches up and down the US’s continental east coast to replace the aging Cisco routers with more MX65s paired with MR32s, or Z series gateways. Once we had them all replaced we moved from the old ASA primary router to using the MX84s and also rolled out the VPN to all employees with laptops for remote access off prem.   Corporate pre-Meraki Corporate post-Meraki IT branch - pre Meraki IT - post Meraki - phase 1 IT - post Meraki - phase 1 IT - post Meraki - phase 1   About a month after the initial deployment completed, our main Citrix environment had a ransomware attack, the MX stopped the spread out to other servers thankfully due to AMP, but the Citrix environment was essentially taken down with the farm infected (old AV solution), so we used the opportunity to bring in the remaining handful of branches to the WAN and off Citrix by rapid deployment of more MX’s or Z series to those other branches.   Since 2016 we have had quite a few changes until recently: We have used Meraki’s ability to use multiple WAN ports to add additional speed and redundancy to branches by pairing different ISP connections, as well as also deploying USB modems a few times to allow branches to remain online during ISP outages where certain sites only had one ISP available. We worked up and out of the box solution to an odd situation …… used a combination of the Meraki Z3C series AND Cisco Webex Teams phones to allow essentially an “always on” mobile command center for disaster spills. They drive the command center to the spill site, and using the cellular connection of the Z3C, connect back to the network over the VPN tunnel, access files, data, apps on the network while in the field, yet also have the ability to take and makes calls from there using a Cisco Webex Teams phone with a dedicated DID and 4 digit dialing extension. VIPs were able to get Z series routers for their homes to be able to connect to the single employee ‘wireless’ network so their home office becomes an extension of their branch with minimal fuss. As we switched our field technicians from flip phones to smart phones, we used the Systems Manager to deploy, track, manage all of their smart phones, from adding ‘backpack files’, to pushing apps and policies, inc their ability to use the guest wifi network. We consolidated all the disparate wifi networks into one single managed employee hardware network and a guest network for employee mobile devices or visitors, all centrally managed through Meraki. We had to stand up a new branch that had no actual location (still were waiting on a building lease etc), so we were able to send the MX and MR for the branch, along with more Cisco Webex Teams phones to the new manager and employees so they could essentially ‘work’ out of another branch, but be on their own new network, pending an actual building. Linked up the additional space in an expansion in Syracuse, NY branch, by adding a smaller MS-220 with an MR33 to give them connectivity by wired and wifi networking and running cabling back to the MS320 already in place. Dropped most branches static IPs and moved to DHCP so we have cost savings at most branches where we had to pay extra for the static IPs. IT - post Meraki - phase 2 IT - post Meraki - phase 2 expansion   At the end of 2019, a couple of days prior to New Years Eve, EPS of VT was purchased by Miller Environmental Group (MEG), and Meraki came into it’s own yet again for us. MEG was a much more organized business compared to the way EPS of VT was when I started there, but MEG had old Cisco ASAs at various branches which linked back to their corporate office in Calverton, NY. The new project as of 2020 has been to link all the branches at both ‘legacy’ EPS of VT and also ‘legacy’ MEG into one new company. We put a new head end MX100 into Calverton, used it to link to the HA paired MX84’s in Albany and deployed out new MX67’s to the MEG branches, or in some cases repurposed existing MX’s and Z series (some branches consolidated) as needed. Currently, in the past two months, we have worked to link virtually every single branch in both domains together so we can now co-exist as one larger new company, all using Meraki networking. This also has given the MEG side and EPS of VT side one single platform to mesh and manage all networks, wired, wifi and otherwise.   EPS of VT/MEG mesh   Our combined network across all branches up and down the east coast now has the following list of devices:   1 x MX100 2 x MX84 4 x MX67 13 x MX65 1 x MX64 2 x MS320-48 2 x MS22-8 5 x Z1 3 x Z3 (2 are Z3C) 20 x MR series APs   There are mulitple benefits for us with having Meraki, from:   Notifications of outages of services when ISPs go down at a location, so we are able to proactively call those branches and work with them and local ISPs to mitigate the issues. Ability to prioritize traffic and services using the SD-WAN capabilities. Use AMP and the Security Center to track issues, even retroactively where malicious content may have bypassed the filtering initially, but is noted so we can follow up later on. Manage all locations up and down the east coast from New England, down through the mid-Atlantic region all the way to Florida and Alabama, update equipment without having to go on site, even with hardware swaps. Track employee network use, report anything anomolous or suspicious, or confirm work is being done and there are other possible issues like ISP bottle necks and the need to increase bandwidth at a location as their workload outgrew their existing connection. Perform remote cable tests to verify dead or bad cables from the access layer switching to end users equipment.   Our only issues over these past 4 years using it at EPS of VT/MEG, are: Occasionally, Windows Updates break the VPN connection we set up, as there is no existing VPN client for Meraki, so when “Microsoft Windows” security settings for networking get patched, they override the settings you have configured for the Meraki VPN connection, and then you have to update them. They added training, the CMNO, which is now the ECMS 1, is available if you sign up for a class, BUT the ECMS 2, is ONLY available at 3 or 4 specific global locations - with all the links they have to Cisco, they don’t have ‘distance’ learning for the 3 day ECMS 2 course and it’s almost invite only after sign up. ... View more