For the past 10 years the team at Meraki has been pioneering a shift towards a cloud model for the management of network infrastructure. This all began with a research project our founders undertook as students at MIT in the early 2000s. By eliminating the need for a physical wireless LAN controller and drastically simplifying the management experience, Meraki has delivered an efficient, scalable ecosystem which significantly reduces costs for our customers. The potential of this architectural approach extends well beyond our initial wireless offerings, and we’ve added security, switching and mobility management along the way, bringing much needed simplicity to more and more networks.
This month we’re delighted to be bringing yet another game-changing product launch to market: our third in just six months! Our focus this time around has been in two areas, providing best-in-class performance in both our wired and wireless lines, and broadening our portfolio to extend the benefits of our cloud-managed approach to other areas of IT.
Let’s begin with performance. We’re announcing our first multigigabit products: a new flagship AP and access layer switch, which together eliminate the performance bottleneck of a single ethernet cable by squeezing more performance out of existing cabling. The MR53 and MS350-24X complement one another beautifully, providing unprecedented performance to the most demanding customers. Cloud managed networking as fast as anything from traditional players in the market? Take them for a spin and see.
The MS350-24X switch doesn’t stop at providing best-in-class performance. Every one of its 24 ports is also capable of supplying Universal PoE (UPoE), which pushes the power limit per port up to a whopping 60W! It’s now possible to use a Meraki switch to power more hungry technology, including virtual desktop terminals, IP trading turrets, medical equipment, even lighting!
Finally on switching, a refresh of our 10Gb/s aggregation switches adds better performance, 40Gb/s uplinks and stacking. The MS425 is available in 16 and 32 port configurations. We’ll be back to talk about multigigabit technology and the new AP models (yes, there are two) very soon.
It would be understandable to think that was enough for one product launch, but we couldn’t resist adding one more thing. Insert drumroll here….
We’re incredibly excited to be bringing the Meraki experience to the desktop with the launch of our first Voice over IP phone, the MC74. This breakthrough device has been incubating at our headquarters for quite some time, going through multiple revisions until we finished refining both the physical design and the user experience, both of which make a distinct statement that is typical Meraki: Simple and delightful to use.
Just as with every other product in the Meraki family, the MC74 is a breeze to deploy. It can be entirely set up via the familiar dashboard and shipped to the end user who then simply plugs it into any network that can reach the Internet. Where’s the PBX? It’s simple, there IS no PBX. Control for calls and features are all provided from the established and proven Meraki cloud.
Every phone needs a number, and one of the primary areas of focus during the development of the MC74 was the service provider onboarding experience, for access to the public telephone network (PSTN). With just a few clicks in the Meraki dashboard a customer can get set up with a service provider and have public numbers allocated. No need to go to the service provider website. No need to make a call. Within minutes numbers can be purchased and allocated for immediate use. We know this will be revelatory for many who’ve worked with business telephony and waited weeks for numbers.
A quick note to our international customers. The MC74 is dependent on a third party service provider for access to the PSTN. Meraki is working diligently with regulatory authorities and service providers around the world to enable us to expand support. At the time of writing the MC74 is only available to customers in the United States.
User experience is everything with a phone, and with Meraki MC this doesn’t end with the phone itself. Sometimes it’s convenient to be able to access call logs and voicemails when on the road, and Meraki makes it simple with a dedicated end user portal which can be accessed via a web browser from anywhere. There’s also the option to toggle call forwarding on or off, just in case this was forgotten before leaving the office. Click-to-call makes life easier for those who spend all day on the phone, providing the option to copy and paste a number into the portal and have it place the call on the phone. There’s even a browser plugin which will highlight any phone number on a web page for clicking to call.
There’s so much more to say about everything we’re announcing this month, in what might just be our most exciting product launch to-date. Stay tuned to the blog for more to details in the coming days and weeks. Subscribing is the best way to ensure nothing gets missed.
Here at Meraki, we are fortunate to have many friendly dogs roaming our building. We began wondering what their day-to-day is like, and a GoPro helped give us some insight. Check out the Meraki office from a totally new perspective in the video below!
Let us know what you think on Twitter @meraki, and feel free to brighten someone’s day by sharing this video!
We are always looking to hire bright talent to join us in our San Francisco, London, and Sydney offices. If you’re job hunting and would like to see what the Meraki offices look like on two legs, check out our current job listings here.
Experienced networking professionals would agree that the more clearly documented a network architecture is, the easier it is to manage. As such, Visio’s diagramming tools have become widely used by those in the industry to visually map out a network’s components and connections.
These stencils will make the diagramming process that much easier for our users, enabling them to make their Visio diagrams more straightforward and more flexible (with the help of predefined connection points that make it simple to create or edit links between devices).
Of course it’s worth noting that for those with the full Meraki stack, the dashboard’s auto-populating topology tool should prove even faster and easier than Visio. It allows more functionality too, with hover-over hyperlinks taking you directly to the security appliance, switch, AP, or port page for at-a-glance monitoring and troubleshooting. Until then you can download the Visio stencils here.
We’re a bit more than halfway through the Australian Meraki Startup Kit promo period, but there’s still time left to submit your startup or to share this promo with a friend who can benefit. We’re selecting our 10 winners at the end of the promotion period on 30 July 2016!
The cloud managed Meraki solution can bring simplified networking to any startup, allowing team members to save time and resources when it comes to setting up their network. They’ll get valuable time back to continue their push towards the next great application, product, or innovation.
Team Meraki has certainly been in the same shoes as those of you who are a part of a scrappy startup, working tirelessly to bring new innovations to life. To show our support for the startup community, we’re giving away 10 Startup Kits that have all of the hardware and software you need to set up a full network, including:
We will be awarding Startup Kits to up to 10 companies based on their ability to put a Cisco Meraki network to good use. To apply, fill out this short application form by 30 July 2016. Please find the eligibility requirements here.
The Meraki Startup Kit for Australian startups is a limited-time offer. Eligibility is at the sole discretion of Cisco Systems.
Enter by 30 July 2016 for a chance to receive your very own Meraki Startup Kit! To learn more about the products in the Startup Kit, attend an interactive webinar, see a live demo, and get your questions answered by our Product Specialists.
Meraki has revolutionized the experience of managing a network. Just ask anyone who’s made the switch.
Speaking of ‘switch’, and to illustrate what we mean, we’d like to present our latest video, Cloud Managed Switches. Every network administrator will recognize the experiences covered in this light hearted video, and for those who wonder what life is like for countless thousands of network admins around the world, here’s a rare insight into their reality.
There’s no doubt about it, managing Meraki network infrastructure is a breath of fresh air and will immediately begin to impact the running costs for any network, large or small.
Finally, our thanks go to Martín on the Meraki marketing team for bringing this awesome video to life. Let us know what you think. We’ll be listening on Twitter.
They’re smart. They’re fast. They’re the technology partner your business has been waiting for. We’re talking, of course, about Meraki MS Switches.
With built-in enterprise security, virtual and physical stacking, Layer 7 visibility, intelligent network mapping, live troubleshooting tools, and more, MS switches are total game-changers for networks of all sizes. Meraki switch customers understand the health of their networks, deploy new devices, configure settings, troubleshoot, and create custom reports in significantly less time and with lower costs than their third-party switch counterparts.
Join the revolution! Until July 30, 2016, first-time Meraki switch customers are eligible for a special promotion on 5-year licenses. Buy any Meraki switch and we’ll give you a 5-year management license at the list price of a 1-year license*. That’s 4 years of smooth sailing on us.
Please check out meraki.com/setsail for more information, and reach out to your Meraki rep or reseller before this ship leaves port. All aboard!
*Detailed terms and conditions apply and are available here (US/LATAM/CA), here (EMEAR), here (APJC), and here (???).
