--- title: "Meraki MX Firewall Explained: SD-WAN, Security and VPN" description: "Cisco Meraki MX explained: the cloud-managed firewall and SD-WAN appliance, adaptive policy and how it works with ThousandEyes and Umbrella." image: https://blog.iptel.com.au/hubfs/Meraki%20MX/_%20Meraki%20MX-feature.jpg --- [![IPTellogo-byline-2020-dark-v2-pnd-optimised-500 (1)](https://blog.iptel.com.au/hs-fs/hubfs/IPTellogo-byline-2020-dark-v2-pnd-optimised-500%20(1).png?width=200&height=59&name=IPTellogo-byline-2020-dark-v2-pnd-optimised-500%20(1).png "IPTellogo-byline-2020-dark-v2-pnd-optimised-500 (1)")](https://iptel.com.au) - [Home](https://iptel.com.au/) - [Solutions](https://iptel.com.au/solutions) Technologies - [Cisco Access Manager](https://iptel.com.au/technologies/cisco-access-manager) - [Cisco Catalyst Center](https://iptel.com.au/technologies/cisco-catalyst-center) - [Cisco Meraki](https://iptel.com.au/technologies/cisco-meraki) - [Cisco SDA Fabric](https://iptel.com.au/technologies/cisco-sda-fabric) - 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[Request a Quote](https://iptel.com.au/request-a-quote) - [Managed Services](https://iptel.com.au/managed-services-enquiry) Case Studies - [DP World Video](https://blog.iptel.com.au/hubfs/Case%20Studies/DP%20World_Case_Study.mp4) - [DP World](https://blog.iptel.com.au/dp-world-case-study) - [Backup Assure](https://blog.iptel.com.au/backup-assure-a-disaster-recovery-case-study) [Contact Us](https://iptel.com.au/contact-us) This is a search field with an auto-suggest feature attached. - There are no suggestions because the search field is empty. ## Meraki MX Mar 27, 2026 There are many firewalls out there to pick from – and they tend to be expensive and complex to configure. Meraki has managed to make a security appliance that both offers simplicity of management and is highly secure – in this blog, we’ll take a look at the Meraki MX appliance. ## ![\_ Meraki MX (1)](https://blog.iptel.com.au/hs-fs/hubfs/Meraki%20MX/_%20Meraki%20MX%20(1)-still.jpg?width=1680&height=945&name=_%20Meraki%20MX%20(1)-still.jpg) Related reading - [Cisco Meraki](https://iptel.com.au/technologies/cisco-meraki) - [Meraki Cloud Wi-Fi](https://blog.iptel.com.au/meraki-cloud-wifi) - [Cisco Meraki Wireless Overview](https://blog.iptel.com.au/cisco-meraki-wireless-overview) - [Meraki Switching](https://blog.iptel.com.au/cisco-meraki-switching) - [Meraki](https://blog.iptel.com.au/blog/meraki-made-simple-meet-dave) --- ## What is the Meraki MX Appliance? As well as all the normal firewall features you'd expect, the Meraki MX also includes SD-WAN – so that’s a major plus. Meraki is cloud based of course, so the major benefit is managing the appliance via the internet. The Meraki MX Appliances also enable a range of integrations, which we'll take a look at later in this blog. First up, let’s take a look at some of the security features – Adaptive Policy and Group Policy ACLs. Related reading - [Cisco Meraki Dashboard](https://blog.iptel.com.au/cisco-meraki-dashboard) - [Cisco Meraki](https://iptel.com.au/technologies/cisco-meraki) - [Managed Services](https://iptel.com.au/managed-services-enquiry) - [Cisco Powered Managed Services: What It Means for You](https://blog.iptel.com.au/cisco-powered-managed-services) - [Meraki Powered Managed Services](https://blog.iptel.com.au/meraki-managed-service) --- ## Adaptive Policy Meraki supports advanced functionality, which looks quite like Cisco SDA Fabric. [![Managed Meraki SD-WAN: What the Service Covers](https://blog.iptel.com.au/hs-fs/hubfs/Blogs/Managed%20Meraki%20SD-WAN/managed-meraki-sd-wan-square.png?width=225&height=225&name=managed-meraki-sd-wan-square.png)](https://blog.iptel.com.au/managed-services-meraki-sd-wan)This ability to provide adaptive policy offers the option of micro-segmentation – which delivers what’s classically known as “zero trust”. The concept of the IP address a device is using, is no longer the specific thing that’s used to determine where traffic can go. A tag is attached to the packets from a device, which is then used to determine how that traffic is handled. The traffic handling is really about exactly what a device can access on your network. Related reading - [Cisco Meraki Access Points](https://blog.iptel.com.au/cisco-meraki-access-points) - [Cisco Meraki Switching](https://blog.iptel.com.au/cisco-meraki-switching) - [Meraki Made Simple](https://blog.iptel.com.au/blog/meraki-made-simple-meet-dave) --- ## Group Policy ACLs [![Meraki Cloud Wi-Fi](https://blog.iptel.com.au/hs-fs/hubfs/Blogs/Meraki%20Cloud%20Wi-Fi/Meraki%20Cloud%20Wi-Fi%20-%20Instagram.png?width=218&height=183&name=Meraki%20Cloud%20Wi-Fi%20-%20Instagram.png)](https://blog.iptel.com.au/meraki-cloud-wifi)If you’re not ready to venture into the world of Software Defined Access, then the Group Policy ACLs are there while you decide if you want to transition. These are sort of akin to Macro Segmentation, where you can provide a wider access to resources, than perhaps Micro Segmentation might be used to deliver.   OK - in the next section we'll take a look at some of the integrations we'd mentioned earlier in this blog. Related reading - [Meraki Managed Service: Inside the MSP Dashboard](https://blog.iptel.com.au/meraki-managed-service) - [Cisco Powered Managed Services: What It Means for You](https://blog.iptel.com.au/cisco-powered-managed-services) - [ThousandEyes](https://blog.iptel.com.au/thousandeyes) --- ## Meraki and ThousandEyes [![Top 5 Reasons - ThousandEyes Managed Services](https://blog.iptel.com.au/hs-fs/hubfs/Blogs/Top%205%20Reasons%20-%20ThousandEyes%20Managed%20Services/Top%205%20Reasons%20-%20ThousandEyes%20Managed%20Services%20(Instagram).png?width=213&height=213&name=Top%205%20Reasons%20-%20ThousandEyes%20Managed%20Services%20(Instagram).png)](https://blog.iptel.com.au/thousandeyes)Cisco ThousandEyes allows for per-hop testing to determine where issues might exist between your end users and your cloud applications (or other networking equipment). Think of TE as a bit like Google Maps for your network – you want to know where the bottlenecks and slow traffic exist. In order to test per-hop though, you need to deploy agents, so the synthetic traffic is generated at each site. The Meraki MX allows for the ThousandEyes agent to be installed on the appliance itself – no extra VM or NUC needed - very handy! This allows you to be testing your network from the point at which you connect to your WAN, so for fault finding purposes, this allows you to easily determine if your WAN or LAN are the root cause of any monitoring issues. Related reading - [ThousandEyes vs Catalyst Center](https://blog.iptel.com.au/thousandeyes-vs-catalyst-center) - [Cisco SD-Access Lab: Part 1](https://blog.iptel.com.au/cisco-sd-access-lab-part-1) - [Software Defined Networking: Explained](https://blog.iptel.com.au/software-defined-networking) --- ## Meraki and Cisco Umbrella ![Meraki and Cisco Better Together (Instagram Post)](https://blog.iptel.com.au/hs-fs/hubfs/Blogs/Cisco%20and%20Meraki%20Better%20Together/Meraki%20and%20Cisco%20Better%20Together%20(Instagram%20Post).png?width=245&height=245&name=Meraki%20and%20Cisco%20Better%20Together%20(Instagram%20Post).png)Cisco Umbrella is another integration available with the MX, so you can easily take advantage of the features it offers. Umbrella offers two key features, which are DNS lookup protection and Secure Internet Gateway (SIG). DNS protection is about testing all DNS lookups and blocking unsafe sites – this is a good place in the overall loading of a website to do this, as you capture anything suspicious early on in a page load. For SIG, this is a lot more sophisticated. As well as your MX filtering traffic, Umbrella has a secure tunnel set up from your MX through to the SIG cloud firewall. SIG is able to decode your HTTPS traffic (much like a proxy does) and ensure the traffic inside these secure connections is safe. This is a level higher than firewalls typically operate, so SIG offers you a second level of protection for your network. Related reading - [Cisco RX-SOP: How to Turn Down the Noise](https://blog.iptel.com.au/cisco-rx-sop-how-to-turn-down-the-noise) - [Cisco Catalyst Center Beginners Guide](https://blog.iptel.com.au/cisco-catalyst-center-beginners-guide) - [Cisco Access Points – Naming standards](https://blog.iptel.com.au/cisco-access-points-naming-standards) --- ## Meraki MX: FAQs ### What Is the Meraki MX? The Meraki MX is a cloud-managed security and SD-WAN appliance. It combines a firewall, site-to-site VPN, SD-WAN, and optional threat protection and content filtering, all managed from the Meraki Dashboard. ### Is the Meraki MX a Next-Generation Firewall? Yes. Depending on licence, the MX adds application-aware firewalling, intrusion prevention, malware protection and content filtering on top of standard stateful firewall rules. ### How Is the Meraki MX Licensed? Each MX needs a licence, with tiers that unlock more security and SD-WAN features. The right tier depends on which protections and SD-WAN capabilities you need. ### Can the Meraki MX Connect to Cloud Services? Yes. The MX supports VPNs to non-Meraki peers and cloud environments, and integrates with Cisco Umbrella and ThousandEyes for extra security and visibility. --- ## Meraki MX: Summary [![Meraki Automation and New Features](https://blog.iptel.com.au/hs-fs/hubfs/Meraki%20Automation%20and%20New%20Features/Meraki%20Automation%20and%20New%20Features%20(Instagram%20Post)%20(1).png?width=245&height=245&name=Meraki%20Automation%20and%20New%20Features%20(Instagram%20Post)%20(1).png)](https://blog.iptel.com.au/meraki-automation-and-new-features)Thanks for reading this blog. We’ve run through some security and configuration features for the Meraki MX security appliance. Ease of use as well as high levels of security and integrations such as ThousandEyes and Umbrella, Cisco have opened the door to integrating additional features. ThousandEyes provides advanced visibility and synthetic traffic to test your network, with Umbrella offering DNS and securing of encrypted traffic – both very handy features to add to your security toolkit. Umbrella is backed by Cisco Talos too, so Umbrella is able to achieve very high threat detection rates. If you’re ready for SDA, then the MX appliance can help there too, but if you are more comfortable with the concept of classic ACLs, then it’s got you covered as well. In the end your choice to deploy the Meraki MX is because you want a highly secure firewall, with advanced features, that is easy to administer and use. Related reading - [Meraki Cloud Wi-Fi](https://blog.iptel.com.au/meraki-cloud-wifi) - [Meraki Managed Service: Inside the MSP Dashboard](https://blog.iptel.com.au/meraki-managed-service) - [Cisco Meraki Access Points](https://blog.iptel.com.au/cisco-meraki-access-points) - [Cisco Meraki Switching](https://blog.iptel.com.au/cisco-meraki-switching) - [Cisco Meraki Dashboard](https://blog.iptel.com.au/cisco-meraki-dashboard) --- ### Need Help With Meraki MX? IPTel designs and manages [Meraki security and SD-WAN](https://iptel.com.au/managed-services/meraki-sd-wan), and Australian organisations can book a [free Meraki demo](https://iptel.com.au/free-meraki-demo). If that would be useful, [get in touch with the IPTel team](https://iptel.com.au/contact-us) or email [sales@iptel.com.au](mailto:sales@iptel.com.au). #### Related Articles ###### [Proof of Concept](https://blog.iptel.com.au/proof-of-concept) Mar 16, 2026 ###### [Meraki and Cisco: Better Together](https://blog.iptel.com.au/meraki-and-cisco-better-together) Mar 28, 2025 ###### [Environmentally Friendly & Sustainability Targets](https://blog.iptel.com.au/environmentally-friendly-and-sustainability-targets) Aug 1, 2025 ```json { "@context" : "https://schema.org", "@type" : "BlogPosting", "author" : { "@type" : "Person", "name" : "Mark McSherry", "url" : "https://blog.iptel.com.au/author/mark-mcsherry" }, "dateModified" : "2026-10-03T07:41:14.673Z", "datePublished" : "2026-03-27T04:47:53.000Z", "headline" : "Meraki MX Firewall Explained: SD-WAN, Security and VPN", "image" : [ "https://blog.iptel.com.au/hubfs/Meraki%20MX/_%20Meraki%20MX-feature.jpg" ], "mainEntityOfPage" : { "@id" : "https://blog.iptel.com.au/meraki-mx", "@type" : "WebPage" }, "publisher" : { "@type" : "Organization", "logo" : { "@type" : "ImageObject", "url" : "https://blog.iptel.com.au/hubfs/IPTel_Solutions_February2020%20-%20Header%20SiteMap/Images/IPTellogo-byline-2020-dark-v2.png" }, "name" : "IPTel Solutions Pty Ltd" } } ```