Cisco Meraki Dashboard vs. SolarWinds Network Automation Manager (NAM)

Cisco Meraki Dashboard is great for NOC teams with little network experience at helping give them all the tools they need to do the job and become more efficient with networks. From easy RMA processes to metric gathering the Cisco Meraki Dashboard does it all very well. The licenses are a problem for a lot of companies since there are no guarantees the product stays online and certain integrations like ThousandEyes are overlooked due to the additional cost despite it being a great product.

Incentivized

Solarwinds NAM is well suited if you want following - 1. Monitor multiple vendor devices from single tool. 2. Multiple capabilities from one umbrella tool. 3. Easy and default integration with ITSM Solution. 4. API driven architecture and hence automation can be done easily. If you planning to monitor SD-WAN devices then Solarwinds may not be good solution as it does not have in-built pollers for the same like for devices v-manage, viptela etc. In this case either you have to leverage native solutions and integrate with Solarwinds or use different solutions.

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

• Fault and Performance Monitoring
• Devices Configuration Backup
• IP Address Management
• Voice Infrastructure Monitoring
• Users Ports monitoring
• Netflow Traffic Utilization

Incentivized

• More granular controls over devices. It definitely feels like, especially when you come from a CLI environment and you're working in a command line interface and then going into the dashboard, you can feel restricted sometimes because if they don't have the button you can't press it. So more buttons.

Incentivized

• Support for more call infra provider vendors
• Cloud Network Monitoring
• Event Management
• Predictive Intelligence using AIOps and ML

Incentivized

At the time of writing this, it appears that Cisco Meraki Dashboard has finally integrated a Cisco IOS XE output window into the dashboard. This is a massive step in the right direction and something that it was dearly missing. At the moment, we do not have this integration and so a lot of the times, we have to navigate via several tools menus to get the info we need instead of being able to run a quick command.

Incentivized

A number of networks we've taken over were using Ubiquiti Unifi, which is an okay solution, but a lot more cumbersome to manage. We've found the Cisco Meraki Dashboard system much more intuitive and way less time-intensive. Simple things like setting up dedicated DHCP entries or poking holes in VLAN firewalls are way easier in Cisco Meraki Dashboard.

Incentivized

Solarwinds is cost effective and easy to install and maintain solution. Anyone can install and operate the same whereas other tools like LogicMonitor, Microfocus needs specialized skill. SolarWinds provides rich MIB OID support that means you do not have to worry about devices supportability, in case there are new vendor with new MIBS then also you do not have to worry about this as Vendor itself does that part whereas other tools like Microfocus does not support this and LM do have MIB complier itself. Parameters are already enabled in SolarWinds and hence less chance of customization required. Whereas Microfocus and LM requires customization efforts. Solarwinds does not have SD-WAN so does Microfocus but LogicMonitor seem pretty good in SD-WAN comparatively.

Incentivized

• When there's an issue with communication to the cloud. EX: unable to fetch configs. This due to like new device being installed or if you have to factory reset the device. This has been a negative impact.
• Incorrect status. Sometimes the status of the device or network is not reflected as it should be. This has had a negative impact in the past. However, for the most part, the Status is fairly accurate.
• Incident response has been very good. Anytime an issue has been reported to Cisco regarding Cisco Meraki Dashboard, the issue is quickly investigated and doesn't take long to resolve.
• Customer support and Cisco's technical team has been very helpful and responsive.

Incentivized

• Our Network Health has improved with Proactive Monitoring
• Cost reduction on additional products like PowerBI for Reporting
• Service Now Integration was easy enough and hence less efforts and cost

Incentivized