For years, Cisco Meraki has been celebrated for its intuitive, cloud-based dashboard that simplifies Wi-Fi management. Its ease of use has made it a go-to choice for small to mid-sized organizations. But what about large enterprises, universities, and high-density environments?
Meraki has gradually evolved to meet the needs of the enterprise space—first by integrating Cisco Catalyst access points into the Meraki dashboard. However, until recently, Meraki’s controllerless, cloud-based architecture presented significant challenges for large-scale campus deployments.
The Challenge with Controllerless Deployments
In a traditional Meraki setup, access points (APs) handle the placement of user traffic onto the network. This design requires all user VLANs to be trunked to each AP, which introduces two major issues in large deployments:
- Wired Network Redesign Many enterprise and campus wireless networks rely on centralized data forwarding. In these setups, user traffic is tunnelled back to a wireless controller, meaning VLANs only exist at the controller—not at the edge. Extending these VLANs to every AP can be costly and complex.
- Roaming Overhead In controllerless deployments, user roaming requires frequent switch updates to redirect traffic to the new AP. In high-density environments with thousands of roaming users, this can overwhelm the network and cause congestion.
Introducing the Campus Gateway
At Mobility Field Day 13 (MFD13), Cisco Meraki unveiled the Campus Gateway. This solution directly addresses the limitations of controllerless deployments in large-scale environments.
🎥 Watch the Cisco Mobility Field Day Presentation: Delivering the Edge: Campus Gateway
What the Campus Gateway Solves
- Preserve Existing Infrastructure Replacing a traditional controller-based solution with Meraki no longer requires a complete wired network redesign. The Campus Gateway acts as a tunnel terminator, enabling client traffic to be tunnelled back to it—just as it would have been with a controller.
- Simplified Roaming Since all traffic is tunnelled to the Campus Gateway, it becomes the consistent entry point to the wired network. As a result, clients can roam between APs without triggering switch updates, maintaining seamless performance.
What the Campus Gateway Is (and Isn’t)
- It is not a wireless controller.
- It does not manage APs or require APs to adopt to it.
- It is a tunnel terminator.
- It is managed via the Meraki cloud, just like the APs.
- It is a central point for terminating AP tunnels for centralized forwarding.
Campus Gateway Architecture Overview
This slide, presented during the MFD13, breaks down the roles of each component:
- Meraki Dashboard Management Plane: Handles configuration, monitoring, software management, licensing, and debugging. Non-real-time Control Plane: Features like AutoRF, AirMarshall, and AI-RRM.
- Campus Gateway Data Plane: Terminates data and VLANs, includes ARP proxy and mDNS Gateway. Real-time Control Plane: Manages AAA proxy, roaming, and client database.
- Access Point Data Plane: Bridges local SSIDs or tunnels central SSIDs. Handles QoS, rate limiting, and adaptive tagging. Real-time Control Plane: Manages client authentication, state machine, and telemetry.
Built for Scale
The Campus Gateway is designed for true campus-scale deployments:
- Supports up to 5,000 APs
- Handles 50,000 clients
- Delivers 100 Gbps throughput, expandable to 200 Gbps when clustered
Final Thoughts
To me, the Campus Gateway feels like the final piece of the puzzle in making Meraki a viable solution for large campus and public venue deployments. While some may argue against controllerless cloud-based architectures, I’ve always been a fan. Still, any credible cloud-managed wireless solution must have a robust method for tunnelling and centralizing traffic when required—and for Meraki, the Campus Gateway is exactly that.
It’s a smart, strategic move that brings Meraki closer than ever to the large enterprise\campus space.
