Connect. Secure. Manage.
Meraki Auto VPN Design
Plan Meraki Auto VPN for site connectivity, considering subnet advertising, tunnel topology, upstream connectivity and the applications crossing each path.
Devices supported
across the UK
Client locations
supported
Traffic handled
at peak time
Average
response time
Average response is not a resolution time or a contractual guarantee. Support scope and response commitments are agreed for each engagement.
Meraki Auto VPN design sets which sites exchange traffic and which networks each can reach. Automatic tunnel setup saves some work, but the design still needs site roles, address checks and security rules. We plan those choices around app paths and recovery needs. The records state what each link is meant to carry.
The whole path
Understand how sites, providers, cloud networks and security controls fit together.
Resilience that can be tested
Separate a second circuit from genuine end-to-end service resilience.
Provider coordination
Keep addressing, routing and escalation ownership clear across organisations.
Map the networks and their owners
We start with the sites, subnets and apps that need private network access. The inventory includes office LANs, shared services, data-centre networks and relevant cloud setups. We confirm who controls the dashboard organisation, the internet circuits and any upstream routing or firewall devices at each location.
Addressing conflicts are investigated early. Two sites using the same private network may require a deliberate migration or another supported design before their apps can communicate reliably. We do not assume that an automatically established tunnel can distinguish overlapping destinations without an appropriate addressing and routing arrangement.
Standards & partnerships
Confidence in the team behind your network.
Cisco Partner
Cisco Meraki
Cyber Essentials
Cyber Essentials PlusMCI Network Services is operated by Proxar Ltd. Certifications apply to the certified legal entity and the scope of its certificates. View accreditation information
Choose hub and spoke roles deliberately
The topology should reflect where services are located and which sites need to communicate. A hub-and-spoke design can suit centrally hosted apps, while other supported arrangements may be appropriate for different traffic patterns. We review the consequences for latency, capacity and the dependency on central locations.
Hub choice includes more than appliance capability. Internet network access, upstream routes, power and local support all affect the service. A second hub offers limited resilience if it depends on the same provider or cannot reach the apps needed during an outage. The design records those shared dependencies and the expected degraded behaviour.
A useful starting point
Not sure where to start?
Bring the requirement. We will help you define the engineering work.
Define advertised networks and access policy
We specify which local networks participate in the VPN and which should remain local or restricted. Route availability is compared with the customer's segmentation needs. Advertising a subnet makes it a routing candidate. It does not by itself establish that every remote user or site should be allowed to access it.
Firewall and other supported policy controls are therefore reviewed alongside route advertisement. Guest networks, management interfaces and operational systems may need different treatment. We document approved exceptions and test the actual paths rather than assuming a general private VPN connection is an adequate security boundary.
Different environments. The same care.
Built around the work
your network supports.
Finance, banking and the wider private sector. We start with the systems and people that depend on your connections.
Finance & banking
Market-data paths, routing and provider coordination on clients’ behalf.
Financial-market services ↗Offices & multi-site teams
Reliable access between people, workplaces and business applications.
Office network design ↗Data centres & cloud
Network boundaries, workload connections and operational ownership.
Data centre networks ↗Verify internet and traversal prerequisites
Auto VPN depends on suitable underlying network access and the supported platform's establishment mechanisms. We review addressing, upstream NAT, firewall behaviour and provider restrictions that can affect tunnel formation. The actual rollout is checked against current Meraki guidance, especially where sites sit behind extra security devices or unusual internet services.
An edge being online in dashboard does not prove its private tunnels are working as intended. We check the relevant network access separately and record the evidence needed when a provider change affects it. This helps support engineers distinguish cloud-management reachability from the paths carrying business app traffic.
Plan routing beyond the MX
At a hub or cloud endpoint, traffic may need to reach networks behind other routers or firewalls. We examine those routes and the return path to remote sites, including any dynamic routing integration supported by the chosen mode and release. A tunnel ending at the MX does not complete the app path beyond it.
Route preferences and alternative paths require careful treatment. We compare the intended design with Meraki's documented routing behaviour rather than importing assumptions from an unrelated Cisco router setup. Where multiple technologies provide reachability to the same destination, the owner and preferred path are made clear.
Test normal operation and loss of a path
Acceptance testing covers representative site-to-site apps, DNS and authentication dependencies. We check the expected networks and policy decisions from actual endpoints. Where safe, we test an uplink or hub failure and observe how the app recovers, including any interruption to established sessions.
Restoration is tested as well. A preferred path returning should not create unexplained oscillation or send traffic through an unapproved security route. The record names the scenarios exercised, the capacity available after failure and any assumptions that still rely on vendor documentation rather than direct testing.
Make future site additions predictable
The handover includes the topology, advertised-network register, hub dependencies and operational contacts. New branches should follow the same review of addressing, permitted access and transport readiness instead of being added solely because dashboard makes the action straightforward. Monitoring needs to identify reduced resilience before the remaining path also fails.
MCI can design a new Auto VPN setup or review a current Meraki SD-WAN estate with unclear routing or recurring tunnel faults. Share the site list and the apps that must communicate. We can establish a supported topology and a test plan that shows the service, rather than counting tunnel status as the complete result.
Technical references
- Meraki Auto VPN general best practices — Cisco / Cisco Meraki
- Automatic NAT traversal for Auto VPN — Cisco / Cisco Meraki
Talk to a specialist
What does your network need next?
Tell us what you are planning, changing or trying to improve. We will help define a practical next step and the engineering scope.
+44 203 196 6566Choose option 1
sales@proxar.co.ukUK-wide service.
Most of our engineers are based in Kent, with a focus on London, Sussex, Essex and Berkshire.
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