Cisco WAN Network Interface Module - expansion module - combo Gigabit SFP x 2 - NIM-2GE-CU-SFP= - Data Routers

By reviewer2290257 - April 9, 2025

Cloud-based technology facilitates remote troubleshooting and transitions to advanced WiFi standards

What is our primary use case? At this time, I am an SE engineer, so I engage with customers to understand their problems and develop technologies for them. Our use cases span across education, finance, and retail industries. We are working on renewing all the wireless setups at stores like Walmart, Bodega Aurrera, and Sam's Club. What is most valuable? The main value of using Cisco Wireless WAN with Meraki is that the technology is cloud-based, making it more accessible for the customer to troubleshoot and implement changes remotely. We are also working with new APs and are transitioning to WiFi six, with WiFi seven on the horizon. What needs improvement? We are conducting proof of concepts with VOIP and electronic tags. Walmart is interested in using electronic tags instead of paper labels for easier price changes on products. We are still testing some features with these electronic tags, so there is room for improvement. For how long have I used the solution? I have used the solution for about eight years. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? There isn't a limit to scalability, but for deployments exceeding five thousand equipment, it requires opening a case with Meraki support to increase capacity. How are customer service and support? While Cisco's support is generally good, there is an issue with case continuity. If an engineer's shift ends, I have to re-explain everything to a new engineer, which is challenging. How would you rate customer service and support? Negative How was the initial setup? The initial setup of Cisco Wireless WAN is one of the easiest on the market. It does not require physical APs to be present for configuration. By logging into the Meraki dashboard and entering the AP's serial number, I can configure the groups and apply settings once the AP arrives. What was our ROI? Cisco and Meraki products are trusted in the industry, which is significant for return on investment. However, Cisco's licensing structure is more expensive than FortiNet, as it requires different tiers of licenses to access advanced features. What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? The cost is one of the higher in the industry. Which other solutions did I evaluate? We have considered FortiNet. Deploying FortiNet and quoting licenses have shown that their basic licenses offer many features, whereas Cisco requires purchasing additional enterprise licenses for advanced features. What other advice do I have? Overall, I would rate Cisco Wireless WAN a nine out of ten. It's a reliable product, though improvements in customer support continuity could be beneficial. Which deployment model are you using for this solution? Public Cloud If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use? Other Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions. What is our primary use case? At this time, I am an SE engineer, so I engage with customers to understand their problems and develop technologies for them. Our use cases span across education, finance, and retail industries. We are working on renewing all the wireless setups at stores like Walmart, Bodega Aurr Read more

Written by a user while visiting PeerSpot

By Ali ALI - January 7, 2025

Centralized control streamlines operations

What is our primary use case? I'm using Catalyst, specifically the 9200 and 9400 series, and C 1000 series. This is also used in every file for WAN, Wireless, DNS, routers, access points, and AAA service. Everything is Cisco. What is most valuable? I have an overall good experience using it. It definitely makes our network and life much easier when using these features. We have centralized control, everything is clear, and there are good controls. It is efficient, and time is more costly than normal. What needs improvement? The graphical user interface is okay, however, the CLI type is not very user-friendly. The GUI is okay, yet it needs more strength in the CLI mode as well. Sometimes, issues are not fully addressed. At the end of a shift, staff may hurry things, giving rude answers or trying to transfer the problem to another tech. It would be better for outgoing staff to guide incoming staff properly, but normally, there is not a good link, and the next person must be informed of the problem again. This should be improved with standardized methods and documentation. For how long have I used the solution? I have been using the solution for about one year. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? The solution fulfills our needs above 80% to 90%. How are customer service and support? I find technical support by Cisco to be very necessary. Compared to other vendors, they are very friendly, and their response time is excellent. In RMA cases, they are very fast. This is a main reason we choose Cisco since the technical support and RMA services are marvelous. How would you rate customer service and support? Positive Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch? This is the first time I'm using Cisco. How was the initial setup? The initial setup is very easy, which is a good part already. What was our ROI? It is definitely making our network and life much easier. We have centralized control, everything is clear, and there are good controls. It is efficient, and time is more costly than normal. Which other solutions did I evaluate? I checked some other vendors as well. What other advice do I have? It is efficient, and time is more costly than normal. Cisco firewall, FDD, or ASR should be wireless. Compared to Fortinet, they are more user-friendly. I use Forticare, four hundred FCE. Cisco firewall, FDD, or ASR should be wireless. Compared to Fortinet, they are more user-friendly. The overall product rating is eight out of ten. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions. What is our primary use case? I'm using Catalyst, specifically the 9200 and 9400 series, and C 1000 series. This is also used in every file for WAN, Wireless, DNS, routers, access points, and AAA service. Everything is Cisco. What is most valuable? I have an overall good experience using it. It definitely ma Read more

Written by a user while visiting PeerSpot

By RichardPreece - November 28, 2024

Reliable solution supports corporate guest access while needing clearer pricing

What is our primary use case? Our primary use case for Cisco Wireless WAN is corporate guest access. We are a hospital, so it is essential for clinical users. What is most valuable? The solution is reliable. It is important that the infrastructure is reliable and does not encounter frequent issues. What nee Read more

Written by a user while visiting PeerSpot

By reviewer1559886 - November 8, 2024

Enhanced reliability and authentication with room for licensing improvements

What is our primary use case? I am a solutions architect primarily dealing with networking and security matters. I recommend Cisco Wireless WAN to customers, particularly larger businesses. What is most valuable? Wireless assurance has significantly improved network reliability. Additionally, certificate-based authentication has been critical for my customers' operations. What needs improvement? There needs to be an adjustment in subscription licenses and their pricing. Buying the hardware and then managing Cisco renewals incurs a CapEx and also a yearly OpEx expense, which causes a struggle. For how long have I used the solution? I have been using Cisco Wireless WAN for a long time, approximately ten years. What do I think about the stability of the solution? I'd rate the product nine out of ten for stability. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? The solution is scalable and adapts well to scaling needs as businesses grow. How are customer service and support? The technical support by Cisco is very good. We have no issues with it. How would you rate customer service and support? Positive What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? Cisco Wireless WAN can be competitive in terms of pricing but may also be a bit pricey at times. The main issue is the license renewals and subscriptions, which can be expensive. Which other solutions did I evaluate? There are many competitors like HP with Aruba and Juniper. Huawei or other Chinese companies provide options, and Fortinet also has access points. What other advice do I have? I generally recommend Cisco Wireless WAN to other businesses except for small business owners due to the cost factor. They could consider other cost-effective products. It would be beneficial to see more AI integration in troubleshooting and network visibility. I'd rate the solution eight out of ten. Disclaimer: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer:Partner What is our primary use case? I am a solutions architect primarily dealing with networking and security matters. I recommend Cisco Wireless WAN to customers, particularly larger businesses. What is most valuable? Wireless assurance has significantly improved network reliability. Additionally, certificate-bas Read more

Written by a user while visiting PeerSpot

By Seungho Yang - October 31, 2024

Reliable connectivity and boosted productivity but complex structure hampers efficiency

What is our primary use case? We are using Cisco Wireless WAN for our staff to access our system. They are using wireless connections with notebooks and connecting to the access points. How has it helped my organization? Cisco Wireless WAN allowed for time savings. It provides reliable connectivity for staff. What is most valuable? The solution is popular, and we have been using it for ten years. The scalability of the solution is okay, and we are happy with that aspect. What needs improvement? Cisco's complex structure was a factor that led us to consider replacing it. It is also more expensive than other alternatives. We had issues with roaming between access points, especially when moving from 2.4 GHz to 5 GHz bands. For how long have I used the solution? We have been using Cisco Wireless WAN for ten years. What do I think about the stability of the solution? The solution is stable overall. However, there were issues with roaming that affected the stability of the connection for user devices. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? The scalability is okay, and we are happy with it. How are customer service and support? Support from Cisco headquarters is satisfactory, and they provide detailed reports. However, the support from Cisco Korea did not fully explain the situation to us, which led to issues in communication and understanding. How would you rate customer service and support? Neutral Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch? We are migrating from Cisco Wireless WAN to Xtream due to its complex structure and cost. Xtream offers better monitoring and detailed logs, which influenced our decision. How was the initial setup? The initial setup of Cisco Wireless WAN is not easy and requires more than one day for deployment. What about the implementation team? One or two engineers are sufficient for setting up, although the POC did not show the full functionality. What was our ROI? We have experienced a twenty percent time saving with Cisco Wireless WAN. What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? The licensing policy of Cisco Wireless WAN is not satisfactory, similar to other vendors. Hardware prices have decreased. That said, licensing costs seem to compensate. Which other solutions did I evaluate? We compared Cisco with other vendors and decided on Xtream due to its advantages in monitoring and detailed logging. What other advice do I have? I'd rate the solution seven out of ten. Which deployment model are you using for this solution? On-premises Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions. What is our primary use case? We are using Cisco Wireless WAN for our staff to access our system. They are using wireless connections with notebooks and connecting to the access points. How has it helped my organization? Cisco Wireless WAN allowed for time savings. It provides reliable connectivity for staff Read more

Written by a user while visiting PeerSpot

By RobertoChavez - September 12, 2024

Provides additional security layer, practical for remote locations and easy to scale

What is our primary use case? We have it on campus. When the users try to connect to the WAN, we have to use that for this objective, or we have to make a wireless independent Wi-Fi using Cisco Umbrella for Meraki. Those are the two cases we use. How has it helped my organization? It's practical because, for example, in remote locations, we use a captive portal. We try to allow users to use authentication through a username of this company. Another thing is the firewall. In the console, we have to restrict or block traffic using the portal. It's a very useful feature. Another important thing is Cisco Umbrella for Meraki, that integration. But it's not too customizable. We have only three levels: default, basic, or moderate, but we want it to be possible to configure it more granularly. Users have different requirements, so we can't satisfy them because we only have three levels of restriction in trying to browse the Internet. What is most valuable? It's easy to deploy because using Cisco Meraki cloud makes it easier to deploy access points quickly. In one instance, a department asked for a Wi-Fi connection, and we were able to deploy this quickly. What needs improvement? Recently, we integrated Cisco Meraki with Cisco SD-WAN and Cisco Umbrella. But, for example, with the integration, we don't have traffic statistics. I don't know if the provider or the partner made a mistake, but we lost the traffic statistics. The observability of the traffic for one client was wonderful before. But after when we implemented Cisco Umbrella in all branches, Cisco SD-WAN and Cisco Umbrella, the integration was not good because we lost the observability of the traffic. Because I think that Umbrella encrypted the traffic before ingressing it to Cisco Meraki. I think that's the reason we lost the observability. Other things that we explained, for example, is the WAN asset to rate. For example, we can help a user that tells us that the Wi-Fi or the network was intermittent. So when we have to troubleshoot this issue, we can't see anything. So all is okay. However, the experience of the user was bad. We tried to use the dashboard, but the information wasn't useful. We worked to change the model of Cisco Meraki to try to help. And that solution worked. But the information in Cisco Meraki portal was not good, and it was sad. For how long have I used the solution? I have been using it for three years. What do I think about the stability of the solution? I don't know if it's the model of the Cisco Meraki product because we have a high density of users. Right now, I don't know if the model of the system supports a lot of users or concurrent users. So, we opted to install more access points. I think that we need more information or more help from partners to assess what model is correct for this environment. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? It's very easy to scale because we can deploy other access points. I think that it's easy because the configuration, we only need the IP address. It's very easy to deploy the configuration of access points because we have to assign a profile configuration. So it's very easy. How are customer service and support? The partner provides the support. We only call the partner to solve the issues. I think that the partner uses Cisco if the problem is severe. So, with Cisco, we don't have contacts because the partner contacts them if they need help. For example, the panel, when we have these problems with Wi-Fi, we ask them. So, we use the site survey, the conclusion, or the accommodation. So, in this site survey, we got the majority of the average number of issues that we have. We overcome that issue. But, after that site survey, using the current tools in Cisco Meraki, we could not solve those issues. We need a site survey to resolve everything. The partner mostly suggests a site survey. How would you rate customer service and support? Neutral Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch? I also have experience with Cisco Wireless, but based on Catalyst. And right now, we have Cisco Meraki, we are going to upgrade to Cisco Catalyst. How was the initial setup? It is pretty fast and easy to deploy. In one hour, we are able to deploy. Right now, we have branches. We have a campus or headquarters. On each floor, we have a different VLAN. The Wi-Fi is on a different VLAN as well on all floors. So that VLAN passes through the SD-WAN. We use independent VRFs. So that VLAN only passes, they use the SD-WAN channel. However, we have problems with that implementation, for example. Right now, we have a problem because the smartphones can't connect to the Wi-Fi consistently. I don't know, but before, we didn't have that issue. The smartphones cannot connect to the VLAN configuration that we have. But now, they can connect. So, we are trying to solve this issue right now. The integration was hard when deploying Cisco SD-WAN and Cisco ISE. In that case, it was hard. But we tried to find alternatives to satisfy the security requirements. What was our ROI? There is a return on investment with the right configurations. What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? Cisco Meraki is cheap. Cisco Catalyst is expensive. What other advice do I have? Overall, I would rate it an eight out of ten. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.Customer What is our primary use case? We have it on campus. When the users try to connect to the WAN, we have to use that for this objective, or we have to make a wireless independent Wi-Fi using Cisco Umbrella for Meraki. Those are the two cases we use. How has it helped my organization? It's practical because, for Read more

Written by a user while visiting PeerSpot

By LalanChowdhury - August 28, 2024

Enhances network reliability, offers device longevity and offers open authentication

How has it helped my organization? We provide security solutions by incorporating Firepower and Cisco firewalls at the network's edge. We connect to the core firewall, then from the WLC (Wireless LAN Controller) to the APs (Access Points). To ensure security, we typically provide a separate firewall for the solution. For secure access, we can mention WPA (Wi-Fi Protected Access) and WPA2. Open authentication is also possible, but it lacks encryption. We can also mention WEP (Wired Equivalent Privacy). These are the key security features. What is most valuable? The device longevity is a factor. enhances network reliability. Specifically, the handoff feature for WAN, when a customer moves from one access point to another in a building or office, is much easier and more reliable if it's controller-based. So, in those cases, we recommend the traditional controller-based solution. Cisco is adding AI features; they've already started in SD-WAN. But in Bangladesh, people are still new to AI. Cisco is including AI capabilities in their devices, so people are gradually adopting them. If they need AI-driven devices for industrial purposes, they can use them. So, Cisco is forward-thinking with these features. Even though they're not being used extensively now, they may be used in the future for things like RFID or automation. That's why Cisco's solution is logical and adaptable. What needs improvement? As far as I can remember, there's open authentication in WLAN networks, but there might be an issue with the encryption process. Most likely, there's no encryption. If encryption could be added, that would be a feature I'd expect from the build. For how long have I used the solution? I have been working with it for more than ten years. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? It is scalable. For example, with a WLC (Wireless LAN Controller), users can cover a certain number of APs (Access Points). For example, consider it supports 500 APs. You can initially deploy 100 or any number you need, and then purchase additional APs and licenses as your needs grow. So it's a scalable solution. We consider the WLC capacity based on the future requirements, like for the next three to five years, so we can scale up the solution in the future if needed. How are customer service and support? The support is good as a partner or vendor. When we encounter any technical issues, we open a ticket and receive proper support from them. Customers are also happy with the support. How would you rate customer service and support? Positive Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch? For 95% of our customers, we recommend Cisco solutions. We only recommend Huawei if the customer doesn't have the budget for Cisco or if they specifically request Huawei. Otherwise, we stick with Cisco. Cisco is more expensive than Huawei but it's not just about price. It's the customer's mindset. We position Cisco as offering a better total solution, and they usually fit within the customer's budget. If a customer prefers Huawei, we'll go with that, but otherwise, we recommend Cisco. What was our ROI? The purchased devices last for 10 to 15 years without any issues. They only need to renew time-based licenses if applicable. Feature-wise, they get proper connectivity and ensure data integrity throughout the connection. It's much easier to deploy Cisco for reliable connectivity. Regarding ROI, customers invest in IT because the return is typically around 37 times the investment. We use this to convince customers and ensure they see a good ROI. What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? One challenge is that with Cisco Wireless WAN, we are talking about term-based licenses. If we compare it to Meraki solutions, also from Cisco, customers are hesitant to purchase separate licenses every year. They are obligated to renew term-based licenses. It would be better if the license cost was included in the device price. Since this is a recurring cost, some customers are not interested in devices that require yearly license updates. They prefer a plug-and-play solution where they pay for three years upfront and then only need to purchase warranty, not subscription licenses. This is especially challenging for customers with lower budgets. Which other solutions did I evaluate? We usually focus on Cisco, as it has CBS (Cisco Business Series) models that are well-received by customers. We usually position CBS or SMDC (Small and Medium-Sized Business Distribution Center) for our clients. Now that they've introduced the 1200 and 1300 Catalyst switches, we are positioning those as well. We work with Firepower 3100 and 5000 series, as well as the 3000 and 4000 series. In some cases, for customers with lower requirements, we also provide the 2000 series, like the 2100, 2110, and 2136 models. We also offer IPS (Intrusion Prevention System) as a solution if the customer wants it and their budget allows for it. What other advice do I have? Overall, I would rate it an eight out of ten. We work with different Cisco products including switching, routing, wireless, and security, including firewalls. In some cases, for clients who need a total solution, we provide a comprehensive package including Cisco routing, firewall for security, wireless, collaboration tools (video conferencing and IP telephony), and even Cisco UCS servers. Disclaimer: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer:Partner How has it helped my organization? We provide security solutions by incorporating Firepower and Cisco firewalls at the network's edge. We connect to the core firewall, then from the WLC (Wireless LAN Controller) to the APs (Access Points). To ensure security, we typically provide a separate firewall for the so Read more

Written by a user while visiting PeerSpot

By Abraham Nanor - August 6, 2024

Helps to deploy wireless access points throughout various locations in the building to ensure full coverage

What is our primary use case? Our use cases mainly involve deploying wireless access points throughout various locations in the building to ensure full coverage. What is most valuable? The most valuable features include checking logs and performing site surveys. These capabilities ensure that we can cover al Read more

Written by a user while visiting PeerSpot

Cisco WAN Network Interface Module - expansion module

Cisco WAN Network Interface Module - expansion module - combo Gigabit SFP x 2

Quick tech specs

Know your gear

Have leasing questions? Let us know how we can help.

Compare

Enhance your purchase

Better Together

Top Rated Products

Reviews

Reviews by Ratings

1-8 of 104 reviews

About Us

How Can We Help

Contact An Expert:

Top Suggestions

Cisco WAN Network Interface Module - expansion module

Cisco WAN Network Interface Module - expansion module - combo Gigabit SFP x 2

Quick tech specs

Know your gear

Have leasing questions? Let us know how we can help.

Compare

Enhance your purchase

Better Together

Top Rated Products

Tech specs

Reviews

Reviews by Ratings

1-8 of 104 reviews

About Us

How Can We Help

Contact An Expert: