Meraki is excited to announce an extension to our growing line of multi-gigabit (mGig) switches with the release of the MS355.

The new switch features a high-count of full, 10G mGig switch ports and is designed to help IT admins of data-intensive networks prepare their organization to meet the demands of next-generation access points. Universities, hospitals, and large public complexes like transportation centers all benefit from the increased bandwidth capabilities of the MS355.

The timing is right for mGig switching. Analysts believe the rise of 802.11ax (AX) access points – also called Wi-Fi 6 – will overtake the current 802.11ac standard by 2020 and by 2022 comprise up to 87% of the wireless access point market.* These next-gen access points require more capable switches to handle the increased traffic.

*Dell’oro Group: Wireless LAN Five Year Forecast Report, 2018-2022

Enter High-Density Multi-Gigabit Switching

Multi-gigabit, or mGig, switches offer the benefit of greater switching capacity while using previously-installed Cat 5e/6/6a cabling infrastructure.

Not all mGig switch ports are the same. Switch device makers may designate a switch as mGig but cap the max bandwidth on the port to 2.5G or 5G. The device is still operable, but the smaller bandwidth size limits the potential of greater data rates in the future.

Notably, we previously dipped our foot into the water of full, 10G mGig with the release of our first multi-gigabit switch, the MS350-24X, which contained just 8 mGig ports for smaller deployments of mGig-capable devices.

For that reason, we developed the MS355, a cloud-managed high mGig port-density switch designed to help organizations prepare for large deployments of AX access points.

The series comes in four models all with 4 x 10G SFP+ ports, 2 x 40G QSFP+ ports, and 400 Gbps of stacking bandwidth. All models use 100 Gbps optical cables to stack up to eight devices for greater network resilience.

The series varies in the number of mGig ports included on the switch:

X Series

• MS355- 24X, 8 mGig ports and 16 GbE ports
• MS355-48X, 16 mGig ports and 32 GbE ports

X2 Series

• MS355-24X2, 24 mGig ports
• MS355-48X2, 24 mGig ports and 24 GbE ports

If you would like to learn more about the MS355, download the MS355 Datasheet or review the technical documentation. Also, consider joining our community page or attending one of our upcoming webinars!