Managed Meraki services

What managed Meraki means

Meraki moves network management into a cloud dashboard hosted by Cisco. Managed Meraki goes one step further: the routine work in that dashboard is handed to a partner who knows the platform well.

It suits organisations that:

• have a small IT team, or none, and would rather not become Meraki specialists
• run several sites and want changes made consistently across them
• want licence renewals, firmware and support cases handled without chasing
• have a capable IT team but want a specialist to call on for Meraki changes and projects

Meraki itself calls partners that look after customer organisations managed service providers (MSPs). The organisation, devices and licences stay yours; the partner works inside them with the access you give.

What we can look after

The scope is agreed with you, but managed Meraki work typically includes:

• Changes: SSIDs and passwords, VLANs, firewall and traffic-shaping rules, switch ports, group policies and guest access
• New sites and devices: claiming new orders, binding networks to templates and bringing sites online
• Firmware: scheduling upgrades and maintenance windows, and rolling back a recently upgraded network if needed
• Licences: tracking expiry or renewal dates, quoting renewals and adding licences for new devices
• Support cases and replacements: raising and following up cases with Meraki support, and handling the RMA process for failed hardware
• Reviews: periodic checks of configuration, lifecycle dates and security settings, with recommendations
• Documentation: an up-to-date record of the design, addressing, admins and licence dates

We can manage a network we designed and supplied, or one you already own. If you are not yet on Meraki, our Cisco Meraki experts page covers design and migration first.

Changes, firmware and licence renewals

Changes. Most requests are small: a new SSID, a port moved to another VLAN, a firewall rule for a new application. We agree how you ask for changes and who on your side can approve them. The dashboard can send a configuration change alert, which emails a summary whenever settings change, so you can see what has been done.

Firmware. Meraki lets admins schedule upgrades per network or across the organisation, set maintenance windows and roll back a recently upgraded network. We can keep firmware on Meraki's Recommended Release and schedule upgrades at times that suit your sites.

Licence renewals. Every Meraki device needs a valid licence to operate, and what happens at expiry depends on whether you use co-term or subscription licensing. We can record your dates, remind you ahead of renewal and quote the Meraki licence renewal so nothing lapses by accident.

Alerts and reporting from the dashboard

The Meraki dashboard has alerting and reporting built in. Alerts are set under Network-wide > Configure > Alerts and can be sent:

• by email, to all network admins or to a custom list of addresses
• as push notifications through the Meraki mobile app
• to other systems through webhooks or SNMP

Examples include a device being unreachable for a set number of minutes, an MX primary uplink changing status, an Auto VPN tunnel going up or down, and configuration changes. Every alert is also recorded in the network's event log.

For reporting, the Summary Report under Organization > Monitor shows usage statistics for wireless, switch and MX networks, and can be emailed once or scheduled daily, weekly or monthly.

As part of a managed service we can help you decide which alerts to switch on, who receives them and which reports are worth scheduling, as agreed in the scope.

Choosing a Meraki MSP

A Meraki MSP is a partner that manages Meraki networks for its customers. Meraki's own documentation notes that MSPs "often need to manage multiple customer organizations in Dashboard", recommends a separate organisation for each company, and gives MSPs a portal that shows every organisation they can access on one page.

Questions worth asking any provider:

• Who owns the organisation and licences? They should be in your organisation, in your name.
• What access do we keep? You should keep at least one full organisation admin of your own.
• What is in scope? Changes, firmware, renewals, support cases, reviews, new sites: which are included and how are they requested?
• How are support cases and replacements handled? Who raises the case with Meraki and who manages the RMA?
• What documentation do we get? And how often is it updated?
• How do we leave? You should be able to remove the provider's admin accounts and carry on without disruption.

Forever Systems is a Cisco Partner, and we are happy to answer every one of these questions at quote. For security-focused managed services such as managed firewalls and SOC, see our sister site mssp.org.uk.

Keeping your own dashboard access

With managed Meraki from us, the dashboard organisation stays yours. Meraki's admin model makes that straightforward:

• organisation admins have full or read-only access across the whole organisation
• network admins can be limited to particular networks, or to groups of networks by tag, with full, read-only, monitor-only or guest ambassador rights
• Meraki recommends at least two full organisation admins, and every admin account can use two-factor authentication or single sign-on through your identity provider

We are added as admins with the access agreed in the scope. If you ever want to take management back, removing our admin accounts removes our access. See Meraki dashboard and Meraki dashboard login for more on admin accounts and sign-in security.

Scope agreed at quote

Every network is different, so we agree managed Meraki scope with you rather than offering a fixed bundle. A quote sets out the sites and devices covered, the work included, how changes and support cases are requested, and what is handled as a separate project.

Contact us to talk about managing your Meraki network. Adding sites or replacing equipment? Shop Cisco Meraki and request a quote at checkout.