Cisco MX60, MX60W, MX80, MX100, MX400 User Manual

MX Sizing Guide

MARCH 2014

This technical document provides guidelines for choosing the right
Cisco Meraki security appliance based on real-world deployments,
industry standard benchmarks and in-depth feature descriptions.

Overview

Cisco Meraki MX Security Appliances are Unified Threat Management (UTM) products.

UTM products oer multiple security features in a simple-to-deploy, consolidated form factor.

Given the number of security features that can be deployed in any given MX, device performance

will vary depending on the use-case. Choosing the right MX depends on the use-case and the
deployment characteristics.

This technical guide is designed to help answer the following questions:

• How do I decide which MX model I need?

• Which features should I turn on?

• How do MX models compare against the competition?

Choosing the right hardware

Cisco Meraki MX products come in 6 models. The chart below outlines MX hardware properties for each model:

MX60 MX60W MX80 MX100 MX400 MX600

Dual Wan Links

3G / 4G Failover

Built-In Wireless

Hard drive

(Tb)

WAN Opt Caching

Fiber Connectivity SFP SFP, SFP+ SFP, SFP+

Dual Power Supply

Form Factor Desktop Desktop 1U 1U 1U 2U

✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓

✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓

✓

1 1 1 4

✓ ✓ ✓ ✓

✓ ✓

2

Cisco Systems, Inc. | 500 Terry A. Francois Blvd, San Francisco, CA 94158 | [phone] | [e-mail]

Network performance benchmarks

Industry standard benchmarks are designed to help you compare MX security appliances to
firewalls from other vendors. These tests assume perfect network conditions with ideal trac
patterns. When measuring maximum throughput for a certain feature, all other features are
disabled. Actual results in production networks will vary.

MX60 / MX60W MX80 MX100 MX400 MX600

Max throughput with all
security features enabled

Recommended max users 25 100 500 2000 10000

Max Stateful (L3) firewall
throughput in passthrough
mode

Stateful (L3) fw in NAT
mode

Max connections 100,000 100,000 500,000 1,000,000 2,000,000

Max connections per sec 2,500 4,500 12,000 30,000 30,000

Max VPN throughput

(per tunnel, no WAN Opt)

10Mbps 40Mbps 75Mbps 160Mbps 160Mbps

100Mbps 250Mbps 500Mbps 1Gbps 2Gbps

100Mbps 250Mbps 500Mbps 1Gbps 2Gbps

35Mbps 80Mbps 100Mbps 200Mbps 200Mbps

Max VPN connections

(site-to-site or client VPN)

Max AV throughput 90Mbps 200Mbps 410Mbps 970Mbps 1.2Gbps

Max IDS throughput 65Mbps 95Mbps 330Mbps 725Mbps 1Gbps

Max WAN opt throughput 15Mbps 40Mbps 50Mbps 100Mbps 100Mbps

3

Cisco Systems, Inc. | 500 Terry A. Francois Blvd, San Francisco, CA 94158 | [phone] | [e-mail]

25 50 250 1000 5000