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Cisco Meraki Documentation

Understanding Cisco Meraki Management Traffic

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Overview

This article explains how Cisco Meraki devices use management traffic to communicate with the Cisco Meraki cloud management platform. As part of this platform, dashboard stores statistics, configuration, and other information for each device. To maintain this information and monitor device reachability, every device maintains a secure connection to dashboard. 

How much bandwidth management traffic uses

Each device uses about 1 Kbps to securely communicate with Dashboard. Actual usage varies depending on the device type and the configured features. 

A single device uses about 1 Kbps under normal conditions. A network with 100 Cisco Meraki devices generates only about 100 Kbps of management traffic under normal conditions. 

Some devices communicate more data to the cloud management platform than others, depending on the enabled features. For example, the MX sends and receives information about configured security features, while MS devices do not. 

Management traffic increases temporarily when a configuration change, firmware update, or polling of live information occurs. The device generates this additional traffic only while the event takes place.

For more information on the Cloud Management platform, please read the Cloud Management whitepaper.

Ensuring devices can reach dashboard 

If any Cisco Meraki devices have trouble reaching dashboard, confirm that the necessary rules are added to any upstream firewalls. 

To find the ports and IP addresses used for management traffic: 

  1. Refer to Help > Firewall info in dashboard.

  1. Review the listed ports and IP addresses. 

  1. Add the necessary rules to your upstream firewalls.