Meraki, the leader in cloud-managed networking, announced today two new hardware products: the MX60W, a small branch security appliance with integrated WiFi, and the Z1, a wireless gateway for teleworker and remote enterprise users. These products complement Meraki’s large campus and branch offerings, adding flexibility in deployments suited to all-in-one solutions.
Meraki also announced a new software update for wired and wireless product families that adds Apple Bonjour Gateway support as well as enhanced security and network visibility.
All in one wireless, Ethernet, and security simplifies small branch and teleworker deployments
Since its introduction in early 2011, customers from Peet’s Coffee and Tea to Syracuse University have turned to Meraki’s MX series security appliances to secure and simplify their distributed networks. Today, Meraki adds the newest model to the MX family, the MX60W, which brings integrated 802.11n wireless connectivity to the MX platform in an affordable, compact, and easy to manage device. The MX60W is a complete access and security solution for small branches, providing enterprise wired and wireless connectivity, a next generation firewall, Auto VPN for one-touch creation of site-to-site virtual private networks, content filtering, and intrusion detection (IDS). With out-of-the-box PCI compliance, the MX60W is also ideally suited for retail stores adopting mobile point of sale or guest WiFi. The MX60W is available immediately for order through authorized resellers at a list price of $845.
For organizations looking to extend secure enterprise connectivity to employees’ homes, Meraki is introducing the Z1 Cloud Managed Teleworker Gateway. The Z1 integrates networking, security, and high speed wired and wireless access in a compact and silent design. Built in an entirely new form factor, the Z1’s capable hardware platform offers dual-band, dual-concurrent 802.11n WiFi with a 600 Mbps radio rate and four Gigabit Ethernet ports. Feature highlights include Auto VPN, 3G/4G failover, and robust identity-based access policies. Scalable cloud based management and zero-touch provisioning allow IT organizations to extend corporate access to remote users without adding staff or management complexity. The Z1 is available immediately for order through authorized resellers at a list price of $195.
New software brings Bonjour Gateway, new security and management features
Meraki also today announced new software for its wired and wireless product families, bringing dozens of new features and enhancement to new and existing customers. Highlights include:
Bonjour Gateway - Apple’s Bonjour zero-configuration service discovery protocol enables applications like AirPlay and AirPrint on local networks. As Apple devices proliferate, especially with the adoption of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policies, Bonjour can pose significant challenges for large-scale networks: administrators must often choose between an unmanageable flood of Bonjour devices on a large, flat network, or a segmented network that prevents desired Bonjour access. Meraki’s Bonjour Gateway technology provides administrators with a powerful tool to manage networks used by Apple devices, selectively bridging Bonjour traffic across network boundaries.
Network-Wide Intrusion Detection (IDS) - This latest software update to the MX Security Appliance adds IDS, enhancing administrators’ visibility and control of security threats in branch networks. The MX’s IDS engine is built upon Snort, the industry’s leading IDS / IPS solution featuring signature, protocol, and anomaly-based inspection. Centrally managed through Meraki’s cloud based dashboard, the MX provides an intuitive visualization of security threats, and is easy to administer even in highly distributed multi-site networks.
Enhanced Traffic Shaper with Fine Grained Layer 7 Application Visibility - In 2010, Meraki introduced the industry’s first cloud managed Layer 7 traffic shaper, and is now the leader in application visibility and control for the wired and wireless access layer. Today, Meraki is introducing a dramatically enhanced Traffic Shaper, providing more precise, finer-grained classification over thousands of applications. A completely re-architected classification engine dynamically identifies web-based applications on the fly, giving administrators enhanced visibility over network behavior.
“With the proliferation of BYOD and cloud applications throughout enterprise networks, administrators are looking to cloud management to streamline their architecture,” said Kiren Sekar, V.P. of Marketing at Meraki. “These latest software features and hardware platforms provide administrators with new tools to simplify their increasingly dynamic network environments.”
“The key value proposition of Meraki’s MX series is manageability and simplicity,” said Chris Day, C.E.O. of Fully Managed, a leading managed-service provider in Vancouver that uses the MX line with customers and a beta user of the MX60W. “Meraki’s solutions are so simple to deploy, we’ve saved around $200,000 per year in labor costs and countless hours in training time. The competing products have a laundry list of features on their datasheets, but the implementation is far too complicated to be useful in practice. With a Meraki deployment, our customers get everything they need and everything works right out of the box just like it’s supposed to.”
Both the MX60W and Z1 are available for immediate order through authorized Meraki resellers, at list prices of $845, and $195, respectively. The software update, including Bonjour Gateway and the enhanced Traffic Shaper will be available at no cost for MX security appliances in October 2012 and MR wireless access points in late fall 2012. More information about the MX line can be found atwww.meraki.com/mx.
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