Cisco's Meraki MR Series is a wireless LAN solution.
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HPE Juniper Access Points
Score 9.9 out of 10
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The Juniper AP Series Access Points work in conjunction with the Juniper Mist Cloud Architecture and Mist AI to collect and analyze metadata in near real-time from all wireless clients. This is to enable rapid problem detection and root cause identification with predictive recommendations and proactive correction realizing the self-driving network.
The Cisco Meraki MR Wireless Access Points is a good solution although not for everyone. Cost wise it is more expensive than competition. Technically speaking, if you are going for a full Cisco Meraki solution from firewall, switches, WAP, and management app, it requires a solid technical understanding of where each part and piece falls. If you have the money and the technical capabilities (in house or outsourced) then it is a solid platform that leans on Cisco's respectable history in the communications and infrastructure industry.
In a high-density K-12 Deployment, Juniper outperforms most vendors. Hardware is superior in terms of durability, appearance, and functionality. The AI Cloud Controller is 2nd to none in monitoring performance and self-diagnostics. AP tools enable easy identification, testing, and troubleshooting of APs. Overall, when switching from a Cisco Meraki to Juniper, there is no comparison. We immediately saw a performance and reliability improvement.
It's cloud based, so as long as we have an internet connection, we can access it. Whenever we push a change, it's one stop like a single pane of glass to manage all our equipment. And so that's what I liked about it.
So the Cisco Meraki MR Wireless Access Points dashboard, it's a little bit like comparing Apple and Android. So with Android you can do a lot more configuration, whereas with Meraki there are a lot of assumptions about a radio resource management. There are a lot of assumptions around, for instance, when it does a heat map, it's a heat map, which is a population density rather than a wireless coverage heat map. So that can cause confusion because normally when you look at heat map, you're looking at, that is a metric for how well it's performing rather than how many devices are using it. So I think that's always at the bone of contention around one of the things it can do.
Reliability and Performance: Reflect on whether they provide consistent, high-quality connectivity in your environment. Cost-effectiveness: Weigh the value they deliver against their cost and any alternatives. Support and Usability: Think about the ease of use of the Meraki dashboard and the quality of customer support. Scalability: Assess how well they align with your organization's growth plans
The Cisco Meraki MR web interface is best in class when it comes to network management. While some networking knowledge is needed to understand what you are doing, no specialized training in any one specific operating system is required to design a whole network.
It is a well rounded AP that is easy to connect, has great insights in to who is connecting or why did they disconnect or fail to connect. I like being able to see the switch and port number an AP is connected to. This is helpful especially when they are connected to other brands of switches
Meraki support is usually top notch. The are quick to respond and stick with an issue until it is resolved. One of the difficulties I've had with Meraki MRs is the limited ability the customer has in troubleshooting. Much of the more technical aspects of resolution can only be accessed by the Meraki support team, meaning dedicated IT teams are reliant on them when more complicated issues arise.
There were documents that detailed how the WiFi Access Point was to be installed and mounted. The only issue was to cable the device, we use a third party for this type of work and typically has to be performed after normal business hours. Other than that, the installation was easy.
Cisco Meraki MR Wireless Access Points are very easy to install, configure, and manage. Centralized management offers excellent features, and especially if you have multiple locations where the access points are installed, they're very easy to manage, saving you a lot of time. If a location wants to expand or reduce its Wi-Fi network, this is incredibly easy. Integration with other Cisco network components is smooth, connecting seamlessly. Updating and layer 7 analysis help create a stable network.
I've used a variety of other APs and WLAN systems. Juniper provides an outstanding product and their support is top notch. The Mist portal is intuitive for most admins that have an intermediate understanding of WLANs. The product is very reliable, and they provide value in line with the cost of the product and service. Ultimately, it really depends on what you need. Want something low cost, but don't require 24/7 support? Unifi probably suits you. Have a small team, need something beginner friendly? Meraki is the way to go. Do you have unique deployment needs, and are already in the Juniper ecosystem? Juniper APs make sense for you.
As far as I know, it's 10. I mean, because like I said, I manage stuff in the south. I have coworkers that manage it in the north. And so the scalability of it to be able to be go in and see the configurations of the ones in the north as well as they can see in the south. So across the board, it works really well for how widespread out it is.
Uptime has improved significantly. The dashboard automatically keeps devices up to date by scheduling upgrades at remote times (say 2am on a Sunday)
Swapping to Cisco Meraki MR Wireless Access Points has reduced the management overhead. No more long controller software hardware upgrades and obviously no more need for beefy central controllers.
