Meraki has dropped AMP – Advanced Malware Protection into the latest BETA.

In a continuing effort to “keep up with the Jones’s” at their internal competitor that is — everyone other department at Cisco.   Meraki has added added Advanced Malware Protection to the MX line, currently in Beta.

One of the great things about Meraki is the ability to simply enable the BETA code trains in your dashboard, while I wouldn’t recommend this for production networks, anyone with lab gear, anyone with a CMNA or anyone with a strong business reason can enable BETA code at anytime on their devices.

I contacted Meraki to get the BETA AMP services installed on my MX64 by opening a ticket but was advised the MX64 beta with AMP was not released yet.

AMP uses a global threat intelligence database with a database of over 500 million known files, and they get 1 million new samples every single day.      More information about AMP is available on this link HERE.

So what does AMP get you in this new beta?

— AMP File Scanner – Downloaded file are checked against the database before a client can get a hold of it

— Security Centre Reporting – you can now report suspected malicious files right in the new Security Center.   This page bring IPS and AMP togeather giving you a holistic view of your network threats.

— Retrospective Alerting – In english?   If someone downloads a file and 2 days later that file is identified by AMP that it would have been blocked – you get an alert.  Now this IS cool – Administrators should really value a tool that looks in the past to tell you “Hey, this file might have infected your network, better go look”

AMP does require Advanced Security License on MX – but let’s be honest, who doesn’t purchase that license these days.

Meraki continues to roll in new value with their gear, with ease and functionality.   While Meraki used to be a great fit for the 200-300 and less customers with features like AMP, larger and larger organizations will start to consider the MX.    However as I have said many times – we need proper dynamic routing protocol support in MX, it is the biggest thing holding it back!