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Meraki: Networking Best Practices

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Meraki: Networking Best Practices

It is recommended that your network is configured with a separate voice VLAN and QoS Policy for the phones and network traffic.

This article will give you an overview of how Best Practices are implemented in a Cisco Meraki Network environment. 

Setting up a Voice VLAN

In the configuration settings:

1. Navigate to Security Appliance > Addressing and VLANs.

2. Add a Local VLAN.

3. Name it VOICE .

4. Give it a unique Vlan ID.

5. Choose your Internal IP address scheme.

6. Configure the MX gateway IP.

Configure the Traffic shaping and Qos Policy

Voice Layer 3 QoS Configuration:

1. Navigate to Security Appliance > Traffic Shaping.

2. Configure a WAN speed as provided by your provider.

Make sure to choose a few Mbps lower than you are guaranteed.

3. Set a per client limit and configure the following traffic shaping rules.

  • Leave a per-client download limit so you don’t over saturate your inbound download.
  • Define your traffic shaping rules to allow the Voice Network IP block and all VoIP traffic.
  • Make sure the Priority is set to High and DSCF is set to 46 (EF).



Meraki Managed Switch Layer 2 Configuration

Voice VLAN:

1. Go To Switch > Switch Ports.

2. Highlight all ports except for the uplink and click edit.

3. Set the switch port type to access.

4. Set the voice VLAN to 2.

Note: The above will make the switch tell phones about the voice vlan through CDP and or LLDP which automatically puts them in the proper network.

Layer 2 QoS:

1. Navigate to Switch > Switch Settings.

2. Configure the Other vlan priority to be reset to Class 0.

3. Configure your Voice vlan  priority to be DSCP.


The above says trust the QoS markings from VLAN 2 ( the phones) and it says don’t trust PC QoS markings 

Now your prioritization will work at layer 2 all the way up to when it leaves your MX appliance the it’s at the mercy of the WAN provider.

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