Consultant: Andrew Kuhlman
Products: Cisco Meraki MX65W
Problem: Customer wanted a small lightweight but powerful firewall with wifi connectivity that could be configured for multiple wired and wireless networks.
Solution: The new Cisco Meraki MX65W provides the ability to assign multiple public IP addresses, Quality of Service (QoS), and the ability to have multiple users, including multiple SSID’s, on both the wired and wireless network. The customer’s project demanded a robust network able to handle their streaming encoders, as well as the ability to ensure those units took priority over all other devices. The customer also needed to have their users on a wired network as well as wireless, in order to access the Internet and locally shared files. Further, several users had to be able to access social media to monitor their online presence, while simultaneously sharing a 25D/10U Internet connection.
As a certified Cisco Reseller and Installer, SourceNetworks evaluated their needs and suggested a Meraki MX65W. This unit surpassed the client’s expectations in every way. Andrew was able to send the unit strait to the client, delete and configure all their system remotely using Meraki’s cloud management software. Andrew set up VLANs on the 2 POE ports of the Meraki MX65W and connected 2 Cisco 8 port POE powered switches. The streaming encoders were connected to the first VLAN and each unit was assigned a static IP address using their MAC addresses. Then, the assigned static IP was linked to a public IP address with connections set to high priority. VLAN 2 was setup on the additional 8 port POE powered switch. The WIFI was created and secured, using a WEP2 security policy and linked to VLAN 2. Andrew added filtering to block all unnecessary content as well as Traffic Shaping to reduce bandwidth on the VLAN 2. Lastly, a rule was set up allowing access to social medial for two users.