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February 25, 2021

Meraki Promotional Pricing is Available Now!

Meraki is still running their current Promotional Pricing offers such as the Meraki Remote Workforce promo on the MX range of Security Appliances as well as the Meraki Ed-Vantage promo pricing for Independent Schools and Not-For-Profits which has been extended until May 1st 2021.

Contact us to take advantage of these offers or for any other special pricing requests or quotes you require - we are happy to help!

February 04, 2021

Now is the time to upgrade to Wi-Fi 6!

Meraki is now making the transition to their Wi-Fi 6 Access Points with the End-of-life of the older APs announced recently - we will see these progressively phased out until around mid-year 2021.

Wi-fi 6 offers several new improvements to make it the highest performing set of wireless protocols ever developed. Not only will Wi-Fi 6 boost overall performance, but it is designed to perform efficiently in real-world scenarios and support increased client density.

Wi-Fi 6's performance exceeds 802.11ac Wave 2 by over 3-4 times, and supports higher density with more efficient airtime, which provides for a higher scale of client devices, and significant battery saving. As the number of clients increase, Wi-Fi 6 will be able to sustain far more consistent data throughput than previous 802.11n and 802.11ac amendments.

The next several years will see a 50% increase in networked devices per person, resulting in an average of 3.6 connected devices per person. As device counts increase, users are also expecting a more rich and seamless wireless experience. WiFi6 can deliver that!

In the last three months, Wi-Fi 6 shipments have nearly doubled as customers embrace enhanced performance. Wi-Fi 6 will allow you to modernise your network and be ready for a world that will see a 300% increase in mobile device speeds by 2023.

Let us help you make the transition to WiFi 6!

Check out the Meraki MR36-HW as the replacement to the Meraki MR33-HW as a starting point and there are also new outdoor models starting with the Meraki MR76-HW.

January 29, 2021

End of Sale Announcement - MR Access Points

Cisco Meraki is announcing the upcoming end-of-sale for the following products:

The following products, which are functionally equivalent, will replace the above products:

We expect to be accepting final orders for this product through July 21st, 2021. However, the final date will depend on the availability of stock and, at Cisco Meraki's discretion, the actual end-of-sale date may be earlier than July 21st, 2021. End-of-Support date for this product will be July 21st, 2026.

Definitions

End-of-Sales Announcement (this document): Official end-of-sales notice
End-of-Sales Date: The last date to order the product through Cisco Meraki point-of-sales outlets. After this date, the product is no longer for sale via any channel. This includes Trial Conversions.
End-of-Support Date: The last date a product will be supported by Cisco Meraki, typically five years from the End-of-Sales Date

End-of-Sale Milestones

End-of-Sales Announcement: January 27th, 2021
End-of-Sales Date: July 21st, 2021
End-of-Support Date: July 21st, 2026

September 29, 2020

End of Sale Announcement - VMX100

Cisco Meraki is announcing the upcoming end-of-sale for the following products:

They have been replaced with the following products which are functionally equivalent:

They expect to be accepting final orders for this product through December 22nd, 2020. However, the final date will depend on the availability of stock and, at Cisco Meraki's discretion, the actual end-of-sale date may be earlier than December 22nd, 2020. End-of-Support date for this product will be December 22nd, 2027.

August 26, 2020

End of Sale Announcement - MR55

Cisco Meraki is announcing the upcoming end-of-sale for the following products:

They expect to be accepting final orders for this product through August 25th, 2020. However, the final date will depend on the availability of stock and, at Cisco Meraki's discretion, the actual end-of-sale date may be earlier than August 25th, 2020. End-of-Support date for this product will be August 25th, 2027

Definitions

End-of-Sales Announcement (this document): Official end-of-sales notice
End-of-Sales Date: The last date to order the product through Cisco Meraki point-of-sales outlets. After this date, the product is no longer for sale via any channel. This includes Trial Conversions.
End-of-Support Date: The last date a product will be supported by Cisco Meraki, typically seven years from the End-of-Sales Date

End-of-Sale Milestones

End-of-Sales Announcement: August 25th, 2020
End-of-Sales Date: August 25th, 2020
End-of-Support Date: August 25th, 2027

March 23, 2020

COVID-19 REMOTE WORKING SOLUTIONS

Companies are having employees working from home due to Coronavirus mandatory shut downs so to help them keep their networks secure use the Cisco Meraki's Z-Series which is a teleworker gateway that is an enterprise-class firewall, VPN gateway, and router.

Z3 Teleworker Device
Auto VPN technology securely connects branches and remote workers in just 3 simple clicks

Meraki Z3 Teleworker Device Deployment

Hardware VPN option for remote workers
Meraki can drop-ship the Z3 to the teleworker's house.
Once connected it would Auto-VPN back to HQ Meraki MX appliance through either the wireless SSID or hardwired LAN Ports.
POE port to hardwire their Cisco phone (or 3rd party phone)
Ability to Monitor Staff Productivity at Home
Secure VPN with Umbrella through HQ MX
Zero Touch provisioning through dashboard
Ability to block & stifle bandwidth on non-business critical apps

The Meraki MR30H WAP is also a cheap and viable solution to offer a secure connection back to head office via a WiFi connected device in the home. With the addition of the MR Advanced Licence, secure VPN with the protection of Cisco Umbrella at the end point is automatic.

Sign up for a Webinar here to find out more about these solutions and get a free device!

Cisco is also offering Free 90-day Webex Licenses - sign up here.

February 14, 2020

Cisco Meraki and Umbrella Integration - MR Advanced/Upgrade Licence

There are two ways that the Cisco Umbrella DNS service can be integrated with a Cisco Meraki network.

1) Meraki MX Integration with an existing (or new) Cisco Umbrella DNS subscription

2) Meraki MR Advanced + Upgrade Licences with Cisco Umbrella integration

1) Meraki MX

Integrating the Meraki dashboard and Umbrella DNS allows clients connected behind Meraki security appliances or access points to have their DNS traffic filtered through Cisco's Umbrella DNS service.

This integration allows administrators to easily apply and modify DNS-based filtering rules to multiple groups of clients on their network by simply assigning a filtering policy to a specific Meraki group policy or SSID.

Once assigned, all DNS requests from clients included under that policy will be automatically redirected to Cisco's Umbrella DNS service where it will be checked against the appropriate policy configured for the Network Device in the Umbrella dashboard.

There are specific instructions on how to Integrate the MX with an Umbrella subscription and this requires a specific firmware version on the MX. For more information see you can read about it here.

Reach out to us if you'd like a quote for a Cisco Umbrella Subscription that you can use with your Meraki MX Security Appliance, its a relatively inexpensive way to easily improve the security of your network and a must have in today's world!

2) Meraki MR

The Meraki MR Advanced + Upgrade Licenses with Cisco Umbrella integration enables Meraki administrators to assign predefined Umbrella content filtering and security policies to an SSID or Group Policy directly from the dashboard and removes the need to integrate with an existing Umbrella dashboard or Umbrella account.

Once Umbrella policies are assigned, all DNS requests from wireless clients will be intercepted by the upstream MR access point and redirected to Cisco's Umbrella DNS resolvers for evaluation. That DNS lookup either resolves successfully, allowing the client to connect to the requested web page, or gets blocked which redirects the client to an Umbrella block page.

In order to use the new MR Advanced & Upgrade Licence Umbrella integration the following prerequisites have to be met:

The organisation where the integration will be used must have the Meraki Per-Device Licensing (PDL) model enabled.
Each network using the integration must have a valid MR Advanced or MR Upgrade + device (Enterprise) licence assigned for every access point.
All access points in the dashboard network must be running MR 26.1+ firmware.

There are two types of MR licences that can enable the Meraki Umbrella integration: MR Advanced and MR Upgrade licence.

The MR Advanced licence includes a device (Enterprise) licence for an MR access point itself in addition to the Umbrella add-on licence which enables Umbrella functionality on that access point. This licence is generally purchased for licensing a new MR access point that does not already have a licence.
The MR Upgrade licence is considered an add-on licence and enables Umbrella functionality only. It can only be assigned to MR access points with an active device (Enterprise) licence. This licence is generally purchased for MR access points that already have a basic enterprise licence (not enabled for Umbrella).