Over the years, the Meraki platform has expanded beyond just traditional networking and is getting closer to the utopia we all seek—a platform that can be used to manage all digital operations in one, single integration. This chapter explores the design intent and layout of the Meraki Dashboard to help you visualize your cloud-managed operations. This chapter also provides some insight into the ways that Meraki is working to enhance the administrative experience across the board. As you’ll see, the Dashboard utilizes the power of Meraki’s cloud-enabled platform to provide detailed summary and overview information to help administrators monitor and proactively address potential issues in their day-to-day workflow before those issues begin to cause larger impacts across the organization.
The Organization Overview page, shown in Figure 3-1, is the first page displayed after logging in or selecting an organization to work within. You also can navigate to it directly from the navigation pane on the left by selecting Organization > Overview.
)
Figure 3-1 The Organization Overview Page for the Cisco Meraki Organization Showing the Map Alongside the Network List in Collapsed Form
Once you are logged in to your Dashboard organization, you can verify the region where your current organization is hosted. View current session information by checking the footer of any page in the Dashboard, as shown in Figure 3-2.
)
Figure 3-2 The Current Session and Organization Hosting Details for an Example Organization
Org-wide Health
The Organization Overview page in your Meraki Dashboard provides a high-level overview of each of the networks contained within the current organization. Its purpose is to elevate data to help you find the “needle in the haystack.” You can expand the network list view by selecting the left-facing arrow at the top left of the network list on the right of the page, and add additional columns to get more overview information, such as Firmware Status or Network Health, for each of the listed networks by clicking the + button in the top-right corner of the table and selecting the column or columns to add, as shown in Figure 3-3.
)
Figure 3-3 The Organization Overview Page Showing the Expanded Network List for the Cisco Meraki Organization
For example, to view firmware-related statuses for each network in the organization, click the + sign and select the Firmware Security and Firmware Status options to add the corresponding columns to the table.
Firmware Status
Meraki manages device firmware statuses on a per-network basis and will notify administrators when an optional firmware upgrade is available for a given network with the Upgrade Available status in the Firmware Status column, as shown in Figure 3-4. A status of Upgrade Scheduled indicates a firmware upgrade has actively been scheduled for the specified network.
)
Figure 3-4 The Organization Overview Page Showing the Current Firmware Security and Status of Each Network
The Firmware Security column reports whether any critical security patches are missing for specific devices in a given network outside the general firmware availability. If a status of Custom is displayed in the Firmware Status column, that indicates that a specific firmware has been statically configured to run on one or more devices in the network by Meraki Support, in which case you will need to engage Meraki Support to remove the static mapping before any additional changes can be made to the firmware for that network.
The Organization Overview page provides quick, organization-wide visibility and easily accessible notifications related to firmware security and current upgrade status for each network within the organization.
For more information on firmware updates and best practices, see the “Cisco Meraki Firmware FAQ” article at https://documentation.meraki.com.
Detailed Firmware Status and Security
You can find more detailed visibility regarding firmware security and status across the organization by navigating to Organization > Firmware Upgrades and clicking the All Networks tab, shown in Figure 3-5. This page provides a detailed overview of every network within the organization and its current firmware-related statuses.
)
Figure 3-5 The All Networks View of the Firmware Upgrades Page for the Cisco Meraki Organization
As shown in Figure 3-5, you can open the Status drop-down menu to quickly highlight networks with their current firmware in Critical or Warning states, like in Figures 3-6 and 3-7, respectively. Networks have a Warning status when their currently running firmware has an end-of-support date set within the next 6 months, and networks have a Critical status when the running firmware is past the end-of-support date. This option is one way to quickly see what sites are potentially in a time-sensitive situation that needs quick attention.
)
Figure 3-6 Networks in the Cisco Meraki Organization That Have Critical-Level Firmware Alerts
)
Figure 3-7 Networks in the Cisco Meraki Organization That Have Warning-Level Firmware Alerts
Getting to know the current status of all your networks and prioritizing sites that require security patches helps to ensure that your networks are up to date on security posture, compliance, and availability.
Proactive Replacements
Because Cisco Meraki strives for the highest-quality hardware and user experience possible, much of the Meraki hardware comes with a lifetime replacement warranty. However, no mass-manufacturing process is perfect, and sometimes a problematic component might not be discovered until long after the equipment has been manufactured and sold. In the unlikely event there is an unforeseen product defect that Meraki is unable to address before distributing the equipment to customers, the Meraki platform is capable of handling the complex task of tracking known hardware or product defects and proactively alerting administrators who manage potentially affected devices so that they can replace those devices before they fail or cause a significant impact to operations. An excellent example of a defect that produced an industry-wide impact is the Intel clock component failures that occurred around 2018.
While Meraki will actively alert any customer who may be operating an affected device in which a defect is discovered, organization administrators can always check at any time to see if any devices in their organization are eligible for a proactive replacement program. To do so, open the Help menu at the top of any Dashboard page and click the Hardware Replacements link.
For more information regarding Meraki Return Materials Authorization (RMA) and end-of-life (EOL) policies, refer to the “Returns (RMAs), Warranties and End-of-Life Information” article at https://documentation.meraki.com.