Meraki Switch API or SNMP or Both? Which is better?

Good day All!

We have recently added the Meraki dashboard to NPM via API but all we can see is the list of Switches/Edge devices which are unmanaged as a Node but no other data. Is this all that adding just the dashboard provides? We have 7000+ edge devices and all are not in SD-WAN, is is mandatory that we add all the devices as managed nodes using SNMP or will just API provide data and alerting can be setup for the same?

Will adding edge devices only for API polling impact licenses as all 7000+ edge devices need to be monitored and each have around 5 interfaces, will all the elements be counted? or is it just the dashboard node as 1 license? I understand if adding via SNMP will count as an element for license.

Is there any benefit of adding only for API polling or is SNMP polling mandatory to monitor and alert all edge devices?

Thanks in advance!

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stuartd

We don't have any switches just Thin APs so I'm not the best to answer but I can get this party started - although perhaps not the answer you want either

So, when we first started using Meraki gear we already had a policy of 'we don't care as much about APs and their connected interfaces as we do about switch to switch or to FW, etc. So we simply went with the API which allowed us to see all the APs via the 'wireless' dashboard and alert accordingly. Then we got a new client who absolutely wanted to know every detail - even though the Meraki cloud could give them that, they wanted a 2nd opinion so to speak. And so, we configured them for SNMP.

Each works, I can tell you that. I guess each has drawbacks but I'm the grunt at the bottom of any ladder doing the work not making the decisions.

I can't help you regards your license query as we run an SLX install so it really doesn't matter how many interfaces or nodes we have so long as we don't exceed polling guidelines. What I will add is it might be useful if you tell folks what licensing you have now? Are you On-Prem [SWOSH I believe they call it now] or Cloud or Hybrid and are you already on subscription, or if still module based then which module(s)?

Also, what version of SW are you running with might be useful?

malasherv

@stuartd Thanks for the response! We currently have only NPM(2024.2) On-Prem with SLX. We have 5 polling engines and dont want to exceed 90% of the interface per polling engine guidelines. We also have 6000 nodes apart from the Meraki. The license issues comes when we exceed 90% on all the polling engines, we would have to go in for extra APEs.

stuartd

So SLX - as you point out your only real restriction there is polling rate guidelines. Though in newer releases these have been considerably increased so perhaps worth looking at moving to a newer version if you are getting close to limits.

It's worth noting that we took on a client with an ancient version of Solarwinds and they were running it just fine at almost 175% of polling guidelines on one poller! It was a little slow at times but otherwise functioned as expected.

malasherv

@stuartd Yes, planning to upgrade to NPM 2025.2 soon. Thanks for the insights.