Cisco Meraki Dashboard vs. IBM Netcool Network Management

Cisco Meraki Dashboard is a great solution for managing a large number of networks across a single organization or multiple. For new projects we are able to set up the entire network in the dashboard with all of the needed settings, plug all of the devices in at our office and have them download their settings, so on the date of deployment, the equipment comes online and is ready to go immediately.

Incentivized

This tool was integrated with Control-M, so whenever we receive any job failure, long-running job, job not started yet, etc, we receive an alert against it. This tool is also integrated with Maximo where we receive the incidents as well for it. Alert's color was as per the criticality of the job and that makes it very easy for an associate to act on it to resolve. We have the SLAs for the jobs as per the urgency of the jobs.

Incentivized

• The ability to monitor any port and get accurate information on its activity.
• The ability to port cycle and reboot remotely. This is best for off-hour reboots.
• Being able to search for devices through the client page with an IP address or MAC address saves time on device searches.
• It is an easy process to add and remove devices to different organizations.

Incentivized

• This is one of the best monitoring tools.
• Very simple to user.
• Color code makes it very simple as per severity.
• We receive the heartbeat alert every hour that shows the system is running up and fine.
• We have black, red, yellow, and orange color alerts that show the critical, urgent, major, and minor incidents.

Incentivized

• Cloud communication could be improved
• Rebooting network switch like an MS120 remotely takes more time vs MX64 for some reason
• Quicker response time for status updates. Cisco Meraki Dashboard take too long to update sometimes
• Uptime for all devices not just the switches but firewalls and APs would be great to have
• Timeline improvements/more detail timeline

Incentivized

• Sometimes color differences of the incidents as per the criticality .
• We don't receive the heartbeat alerts sometimes.
• If the tool is down and we don't receive the alerts on the console we wait for the heartbeat alert and it makes some extra delay in resolving things.

Incentivized

The dashboard is easy to navigate and offers many pages that are loaded with information. Cisco Meraki adds new features to the dashboard based on customer feedback and I have seen so many updates and changes that have improved upon the previous version. Most recently they have added Cisco's AI and are looking at an Automation option that will only further improve usability.

Incentivized

The Cisco Meraki Dashboard is of course the most user friendly and the NDFC is being modified to look similar to the Cisco Meraki Dashboard as of today.

Incentivized

This is one of the essential tools for monitoring. This tool was integrated with Maximo and Control-M in my organization. So whenever any job failed in Control-M, we receive an alert against it in the IBM Netcool/OMNIbus. We receive the alerts in different colors as per the criticality. Black for critical ones(Sev1), red for urgent (Sev2), yellow for major(Sev3), and orange for minor(Sev4). So it makes an easy to operate and act on the alerts as per the severity. This tool is very user-friendly and easy to use. No additional training is required for the tool to operate, just a simple KT is enough.

Incentivized

• It's definitely allowed us to operate with a smaller team and allowed us to troubleshoot issues quicker. The Meraki dashboard with Meraki APs has helped us identify issues on our wireless network, monitor the health, and really help our remote locations out with troubleshooting and getting devices online quicker.

Incentivized

• Color feature of the alerts as per the criticality is the amazing feature.
• Heartbeat alert is also an unique feature.
• No additional training is required to use this tool. just a simple KT is enough.

Incentivized