Today’s small and medium-sized businesses have far more complex network setups than ever before. It is not unusual for SMBs’ networks to encompass various clouds, on-premises servers, WiFi routers, firewalls, apps, and users with a variety of PCs, laptops, mobiles, and more. And this complexity has only risen in the era of remote working. Managing these complex networks is usually time-consuming and resource-intensive. But this is where Cisco Meraki helps.
Cisco Meraki provides solutions to manage your company’s entire IT network from the cloud. It is designed for any business with complex networking requirements (although it’s especially popular among SMBs). Let’s see how it can help you.
What exactly is Cisco Meraki?
Cisco Meraki allows you to configure security for Internet-connected devices, routers, switches, firewalls and WiFi networks your company uses through an internet-connected browser. It provides a convenient and efficient way of configuring your organisation’s entire network. Rather than managing all those endpoints at the individual level, Cisco Meraki lets you configure and update them all from a single place.
7 reasons to choose Cisco Meraki
At FITTS, we have seen first-hand how Cisco Meraki helps our customers. Here are just some of the most noticeable business benefits of using the platform:
- A single place to manage thousands of devices
Cisco Meraki provides a single pane of glass to manage your network(s). All of your endpoints, devices, security and firewalls can be configured from a single interface in the cloud. Rather than managing all those devices and settings at an individual level, you can instead manage them with a single click over the Internet.
This is especially useful in an era where more and more employees are working remotely at least some of the time (and can also help with businesses that are expanding geographically). If you want to ensure your entire network is protected in the same way, across all your locations, Cisco Meraki lets you do that.
- Easy to deploy
At FITTS, we’ve always found Cisco’s solution set extremely easy to get up and running. You simply need to log into your account and can start managing devices and settings in moments. The user interface is very accessible and there’s no extended learning curve.
- An excellent option for SMB’s
Cisco Meraki is suitable for businesses of any size, but we find it is particularly useful for SMB’s because it allows a small team that may not have vast amounts of time or resources to manage their network very efficiently. While it might not have the same level of power as more advanced Cisco technologies and hardware, Meraki isn’t too far off – and is more than capable of supporting the needs of smaller businesses.
- Massively scalable
Since it is cloud-based, Cisco lets you scale your operations quickly and easily. You will have access to virtually unlimited resources, and this facilitates on-demand expansion.
- Designed for modern hybrid and mobile work
With hybrid work now the norm at many businesses, IT teams need to find ways to securely manage all their devices, routers, switches, and firewalls regardless of where their employees are physically located. Cisco provides an excellent way to do this. As noted above, it gives you a single pane of glass where you can easily manage your entire network – including in people’s homes.
- Impressive security
The Cisco Meraki platform delivers excellent connectivity and security for all your apps and data, wherever they reside. Cisco provides high levels of security and is fully compliant with all major security standards and regulations (GDPR, HIPAA etc.). Firmware and security updates are constantly rolled out, and the system undergoes third-party security audits and daily penetration testing. That means you can be confident that you will have best of breed security across your network.
The real question: Could you do it alone?
Cisco Meraki provides one of the most powerful platforms out there for managing all the devices you have running across your network. If you are deciding whether or not to use this platform, the real question to ask is whether you could do it alone.
Configuring thousands of devices, monitoring their security and updating them is of course perfectly possible for any skilled IT professional. However, as your organisation grows, this will likely take ever more time and resources. And that is where we think Cisco Meraki really stands out. By giving you the ability to manage a distributed network quickly, easily and securely, you get back more time for doing the things that really matter to your business.
At FITTS, we are proud to partner with Cisco Meraki to help you manage all devices, apps, firewalls, routers, and much more across your network. If you want to learn more about using Cisco Meraki, contact us today.
