What is Cisco Meraki?

Cisco Meraki is a mobile device management system. There are different MDMs; Meraki is of interest because it has free and paid versions and can work on a wide range of devices and operating systems.

Bring your own device (BYOD) networks can be challenging to protect since these devices bring additional threats into the network because they are not exclusively used within the organization network. As the devices do not belong to the organization, there is also less control over what users install on them and whether they keep the devices and software up to date.

Meraki works on desktops, laptops, iOS, Android, tablets, and phones. Meraki allows you to create different rules for these devices. Meraki also supports remote lock, remote wipe, and pushing applications. This versatility is essential in a BYOD network, as users will bring in different devices, while the ability to lock and wipe devices is useful if someone loses a device that has work-related data on it. Meraki includes geolocation features so you can find lost or stolen devices. You can also geofence devices that are not allowed to leave the building so that you receive an alert if they leave the premises and location tracking automatically turns on.

Therefore using MDM, such as Meraki, has a lot of advantages. It gives insight into the devices on your network and allows you to protect the data on those devices by ensuring compliance and wiping the devices if they go missing. It also increases efficiency, as updates can be pushed to multiple devices at once, and you can set up your policies in advance to ensure devices receive the relevant updates. This makes administration easy and increases the overall security of your network.

Meraki allows monitoring of devices so you can track compliance. This can be used to ensure users keep their software up to date, have all the appropriate work software installed, and are using an antivirus. This allows for a high degree of configuration. Meraki also ties into other Cisco devices, such as Cisco switches, cameras, phones, and other devices. In the next video, you will learn more about monitoring with Meraki.