Cisco Meraki Insight vs. PingPlotter

We found that Cisco Meraki is well suited to our education environment. Utilized across a central network (although it could easily be cloud-connected), we use this system to monitor (in real-time) network events. Our Wi-Fi network is a good example; we can easily issue guest Wi-Fi codes and even delegate access to code generation to our reception teams so that they can issue them to guests.

Incentivized

The best scenario and best results are seen when the path does not reuse the same device for the "next hop". It is less well suited in situations where the path is being tricked by the re-use of devices for the next interface. This is seen required in many networks where the proper type of connection is not on an end device and the core device is used to provide a fiber to copper sort of "pass-through" connection.

Incentivized

• Securing appliances with the ability to automatically update firmware or schedule at our convenience.
• Support Teams, we cannot emphasize enough the outstanding support Cisco Meraki provides and they are always willing to go the extra mile to ensure everything is working well.
• Warranty of products, if ever there is a question on physical equipment Cisco Meraki replaces it quickly no questions asked.

Incentivized

• Monitor traffic in network
• Measure stops when contacting network locations such as websites
• Measures the lag and latency it takes to contact network locations
• Gives you both induvidual measurements as well as good oversight
• identifies when network lag or disconnect occurs

• Menu layout.
• Email notifications.
• Adoption process.

Incentivized

• Its a little confusing to see which targets are currently running pings and which ones are displayed in the plots.
• Starting and stopping pings requires a right click and that would be better with a play/pause button I think.
• Ability to drag and drop the graphs to reorder them.
• more columns to show which targets are running and which are displayed. Currently this is done with symbols so you cant sort by just the running targets for example I've found.

Incentivized

I installed it and it just started working. I realized I could then tweak it to show what I needed but didn't have to spend a long time configuring it before use, editing YAML files etc. Maybe that's fine for a network professional, but I only need this software if something goes wrong, and then need it to work quickly out of the box.

Incentivized

I have not had much contact with the PingPlotter support, only one time have I went to them and it was a positive experience. The questions I had were answered quickly and professionally. I have no issue with the experience I had with the Support team. This was from before and after the purchase of the product.

Incentivized

Cisco Meraki has made the world of management so much easier, allowing IT Administrators and Business Management personnel to enjoy more time on the business needs and less time managing equipment.

Incentivized

PingPlotter has better visualizations and a stronger ability to capture historical data than other tools I've used. This makes it easier to find the root cause by looking back in the log data to find where latency or packet loss occurred.

Incentivized

Just about every department we've been asked to provide access to has been able to utilize this system. Be it from a CCTV perspective or for environment reporting, Cisco Meraki Insight can fit into this situation with ease, and without a great deal of training, our users found the system very intuitive.

Incentivized

• The ease of use saved us many hours of billable time.
• Support added lots of value.
• Licensing and equipment cost really put a damper on overall value (being so high).

Incentivized

• Great ROI, troubleshooting time has been reduced by 90%
• Network Discoveries used to take 2 to 3 hours and were inconsistent - now it is a matter of minutes
• lacks integration into our MSP toolkit, and we now use it as a stand alone product

Incentivized