Introduction

Managing Meraki with Firewall in Security Cloud Control

Meraki MX is an enterprise security and software-defined wide-area-network (SD-WAN) next-generation firewall appliance designed for distributed deployments. It is managed remotely by the Meraki dashboard and now you can manage layer 3 network rules on Meraki MX devices using Firewall in Security Cloud Control (formerly Cisco Defense Orchestrator). See Meraki Next-Gen Firewall Technologies and Meraki product documentation for more information. After you onboard a Meraki device to Security Cloud Control, Security Cloud Control communicates with the Meraki dashboard to manage that device. Security Cloud Control does not communicate with the MX directly. Security Cloud Control securely transfers configuration requests to the Meraki dashboard which then applies the new configuration to the device. See How Does Security Cloud Control Communicate With Meraki for more information.

Security Cloud Control helps you optimize your Meraki environment by identifying problems with objects and policies and generating possible fixes or alternative options. This applies to policies that are associated to both devices and templates. Use Security Cloud Control to:

  • Simultaneously manage policies on one or more Meraki devices

  • Monitor and manage Meraki policies or templates alongside your FTD and ASA devices in an all-encompassing environment.

  • Use a Meraki template to manage multiple networks.

  • Customize access rules with objects that are compatible across other supported platforms, such as FTD and ASA devices.

Onboard Meraki MX Devices

Prior to onboarding a device to Security Cloud Control, you must create an account with the Meraki dashboard and onboard your device or template to the dashboard. If your organization does not have an account in the Meraki dashboard, you will be unable to generate an API token and your device will not communicate to Security Cloud Control.

You can onboard either a Meraki MX device or a Meraki template to Security Cloud Control.

Handle Meraki MX login credentials and permissions through the Security Cloud Control console. Without the correct credentials or permissions, Security Cloud Control cannot communicate with the Meraki device. See Updating Meraki MX Credentials and Generate and Retrieve Meraki API Key for more information.

Meraki Layer 3 Rules and Security Cloud Control

At this time, Security Cloud Control supports layer 3 firewall rules only. Layer 3 rules enforce policy at the network layer of the OSI model. See Using Layer 3 Firewall Rules for more information.

The Meraki environment allows you to create Layer 3 outbound rules in the Meraki dashboard. Security Cloud Control reads in the layer 3 rules you have defined in the Meraki dashboard when you onboard a device into Security Cloud Control. You can then manage these rules just as you would manage FTD or ASA rules in Security Cloud Control. See Manage Meraki Access Control Policy for more information.

Objects

Fine-tune your new access control policy with objects. The Meraki dashboard uses protocols and groups of IP addresses or IP address ranges; in contrast, Security Cloud Control uses a variety of objects to manage rules. To understand how Security Cloud Control transfers Meraki protocols into objects, see Objects Associated with Meraki Devices for more information. The following objects can be created in Security Cloud Control and translated into IP groups in the Meraki dashboard:

The Meraki environment allows you to create Layer 3 outbound rules in the Meraki dashboard. Security Cloud Control reads in the layer 3 rules you have defined in the Meraki dashboard when you onboard a device into Security Cloud Control. You can then manage these rules just as you would manage FTD or ASA rules in Security Cloud Control. See Manage Meraki Access Control Policy for more information.

How Does Security Cloud Control Communicate With Meraki

Deploy From Security Cloud Control to your Meraki Device

Security Cloud Control does not deploy configuration changes directly to a Meraki MX device; deployment is a multi-step process. See the diagram below:

Configuration changes that you make in Security Cloud Control for a Meraki MX device are staged in Security Cloud Control until you decide to deploy them. When you deploy the configuration changes, Security Cloud Control forwards them to the Meraki Dashboard, which implements them on the Meraki MX device. Security Cloud Control manages firewall policies while Meraki dashboard manages the network the policies are applied to. Both operations affect how traffic flows through the Meraki MX device and how it is processed.

Some customers with older tenants may connect the Meraki MX device to Security Cloud Control through an SDC. If you are one of those customers, you can continue to use this method or you can remove the SDC by re-onboarding your Meraki MX or updating the connection credentials. You do not need an SDC to connect Security Cloud Control to Meraki MX.

One difference between Security Cloud Control and the Meraki dashboard is the use of objects. For rules that are created on the Meraki dashboard, Security Cloud Control takes Meraki IP address groups or IP address ranges and turns them into objects that can be attached or associated to rules and the device policy. When you deploy objects that are created in Security Cloud Control to Meraki appliances, the Meraki dashboard translates those objects back into IP address groups or ranges. Objects in Security Cloud Control are unique and versatile since they are compatible with other device platforms; if you have other devices onboarded in Security Cloud Control, you may be able to create a single object for all your devices. See Objects Associated with Meraki Devices for more information.

About Cisco Security Cloud Control

Cisco Security Cloud Control is a security platform that allows you to manage your security products and achieve security outcomes from a single integrated interface.

Integrating security products in the platform is a streamlined experience. After purchasing your subscriptions to Cisco security products, you receive a single email, with a single claim code for all the subscriptions you purchased. Entering the claim code in your new Security Cloud Control organization provisions all your products to Security Cloud Control simultaneously.

Within Security Cloud Control, user and group management occurs at the platform level. Roles are assigned to these users and groups to define their privileges for administering Security Cloud Control and the integrated products.

Navigation between products and tools is intuitive and standardized with a common platform menu and toolbar for all integrated products.

Security Cloud Control provides these additional core services to all integrated products on the platform:

  • Platform Management: Common services such as managing role-based access control, claiming subscriptions and standardized regional deployment of product instances are provided by Security Cloud Control. By centralizing these functions, Security Cloud Control ensures a consistent user experience in provisioning and managing access across all Cisco security products managed from the platform. Administrators reach these common services from the Platform Management menu in the main navigation bar of Security Cloud Control.

  • AI Assistant: The Cisco AI Assistant in Security Cloud Control is designed to streamline security operations by providing AI-driven insights, automation, and contextual guidance. It assists administrators in managing security policies, troubleshooting issues, and optimizing configurations across Cisco’s security products, including Firewall, Duo, , and Secure Access. By leveraging natural language processing and cross-platform intelligence, the assistant enhances efficiency, accelerates incident response, and simplifies security workflows.

  • Global Search: The ability to search for values across products in the platform.

  • Shared Objects: Creating and managing objects that can be shared across devices and policies.

  • Unified documentation portal: A documentation "Help" experience where all documentation is accessible in one portal.

Products You Can Integrate with Security Cloud Control

From Security Cloud Control, you can manage all of these security products:

  • AI Defense

  • Security Cloud Control Firewall Management

  • Multicloud Defense

  • Secure Access

  • Secure Workload

Products You Can Launch from Security Cloud Control

From Security Cloud Control, you can launch these security products. After launch, these products operate as standalone products and you cannot manage them through Security Cloud Control. You can only claim or deactivate the licenses of such products from Security Cloud Control.

In the Security Cloud Control toolbar, click the nine-dot menu to launch these products:

  • Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense

  • Cisco Secure Endpoint

  • Cisco Duo

  • Cisco XDR

Products Supported by Security Cloud Control

Currently, these are the products you can integrate with Security Cloud Control .

AI Defense: AI Defense addresses risks for users and providers of AI. Using network visibility and enforcement points in the Security Cloud Control, AI Defense adds detection and enforcement measures to discover sanctioned and unsanctioned AI workloads, applications, models, data, and user access across your distributed cloud environment. For organizations that develop and deliver AI-powered services, AI Defense detects vulnerabilities in your AI models before they're delivered. For your running AI applications, AI Defense guardrails intercept rapidly evolving threats, including prompt injections, denial of service, and data leakage. See AI Defense Documentation for more information.

Security Cloud Control Firewall Management: Security Cloud Control Firewall Management (formerly Cisco Defense Orchestrator) is a cloud-based security policy manager that simplifies and unifies policy across your Cisco firewalls and other devices. See Firewall in Security Cloud Control Documentation for more information.

Multicloud Defense: Multicloud Defense provides a simplified and highly automated approach to multicloud security. This solution allows organizations to manage and secure their multicloud environments using a single SaaS delivered control plane, and centralized or distributed PaaS-delivered data plane architectures. Multicloud Defense provides continuous visibility, unified protection and dynamic policy updates across all major cloud providers, thereby eliminating the need for separate point solutions for solutions for each cloud provider. See Multicloud Defense Documentation for more information.

Secure Access: Cisco Secure Access is a cloud-based platform that provides multiple levels of defense against internet-based threats. Connect securely to the internet, SaaS apps, and private digital resources from your organization's network or roaming off-network. Using policy rules, configure and enforce security controls on collections of resources, users, and devices. See Secure Access Documentation for more information. Secure Access subscriptions also include the Identity Intelligence integration via Security Cloud Control at no additional charge—this does not include access to the standalone Identity Intelligence dashboard. For more information, see Integrate Cisco Identity Intelligence with Secure Access.

Secure Workload: Cisco Secure Workload (formerly Tetration) seamlessly delivers zero-trust micro-segmentation across any workload, environment, or location from a single console. With comprehensive visibility into every workload interaction and powerful AI/ML-driven automation, Secure Workload reduces the attack surface by preventing lateral movement, identifies workload behavior anomalies, helps rapidly remediate threats, and continuously monitors policy compliance. See Secure Workload Documentation for more information.

About Security Cloud Control Firewall Management

Firewall in Security Cloud Control (formerly Cisco Defense Orchestrator) simplifies the management of security policies in distributed environments, ensuring consistent policies across all managed firewalls. The firewalls and devices are managed in Firewall, which is listed under Products in the Security Cloud Control.

It optimizes security policies by identifying inconsistencies and providing resolution tools. The platform enables object and policy sharing, as well as the creation of configuration templates, ensuring policy uniformity across devices.

Coexisting with local device managers like the Adaptive Security Device Manager (ASDM), Security Cloud Control tracks configuration changes made by both itself and other managers, reconciling any discrepancies.

Featuring an intuitive user interface, Security Cloud Control allows management of various devices from a single platform. Advanced users can also utilize an enhanced CLI interface for more efficient management.

The platform offers a guided "Day 0" experience, facilitating the quick onboarding of threat defense devices to your on-premises or Cloud-Delivered Firewall Management Center. It highlights key features for potential benefits and assists in their activation and configuration.

Onboard Devices

Before you onboard a device, make sure that you have successfully completed the installation wizard and licensed the device. Then use Security Cloud Control's onboarding wizard to onboard your device. Security Cloud Control can easily manage large deployments.

See Onboard Devices and Services.


Note

Once you have onboarded devices to a Security Cloud Control tenant, you cannot migrate the devices from one Security Cloud Control tenant to another. If you want to move your devices to a new tenant, you need to re-onboard the devices to the new tenant.

For a complete list of devices that Security Cloud Control supports and manages, see Supported Devices, Software, and Hardware.

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The Firewall Dashboard

The Firewall dashboard is your central hub for monitoring and managing tenant-level details across various categories. Upon logging in, you can access a customizable dashboard that offers critical insights and actions to optimize security and operational efficiency.

Customize Your Dashboard

Make your dashboard fit your specific needs by customizing the visible widgets.

  1. On the Home page, click Customize.

  2. Select or deselect the widgets you want to view on the dashboard.

  3. You can drag and drop the widgets to arrange them as you prefer.

The dashboard is divided into three main sections: Top Insights & Alerts, Top Actions, and Top Information. Each section provides different categories of insights to help you maintain optimal security and operational control.

Top Insights & Alerts

This section is visible only if AIOps Insights is enabled for your tenant. You can view insights related to high traffic caused by elephant flows, RA VPN forecast, access control policy anomalies, high CPU and memory usage, snort CPU and memory usage.

Top Actions

This section is visible only if AIOps Insights is enabled for your tenant. If enabled, you can view the following widgets:

  • Policy Analyzer and Optimizer: Analyzes security policies, detects anomalies, and provides optimization recommendations to improve firewall performance.

    For more information, see Policy Analyzer and Optimizer.

  • AIOps Insights: Offers detailed information on all active insights and trends, categorizing anomalies by Configuration, Health & Operations, or Traffic & Capacity.

    For more information, see AIOps Insights.

  • Feature Adoption: Provides insights into feature adoption rates to optimize usage patterns and enhance security measures.

    For more information, see Assess and Improve Feature Adoption.

Top Information

This section provides detailed insights into various tenant-level metrics. If enabled, you can view the following widgets:

  • Configuration States: Indicates the discrepancies between the configurations on your devices and those maintained by Security Cloud Control. This comparison helps identify any inconsistencies or conflicts that may exist.

    For more information, see Device Management.

  • Change Log Management: Helps you to manage the change logs for precise operational control. The widget displays Completed and Pending change logs.

    For more information, see Change Logs.

  • RA VPN Sessions: Helps you to monitor your Remote Access VPN sessions.

    For more information, see RA VPN Sessions.

  • Overall Inventory: Helps you to monitor the health and status of all devices. The widget displays the total number of devices, categorized into Issues, Pending Actions, Other, and Online.

    For more information, see All Devices.

  • Site-to-Site VPN: Helps you to manage and assess your site-to-site VPN connections. The widget displays the total number of VPN tunnels and the percentage that are Active and Idle.

    For more information, see Site-to-site VPN.

  • Accounts and Assets:

    • Helps you to track and manage your multicloud accounts and resources effectively. You can launch the Multicloud Defense Controller from here.

    • Click +Add Account to add a new account.

    For more information, see Multicloud Defense Controller.

  • Top Risky Destinations: Helps you identify and monitor the top risky destinations that are granted access. The widget lists Applications and URL Categories and allows you to filter data for the last 90, 60, or 30 days. You can filter between Allowed (default) and Blocked traffic.

  • Top Intrusion and Malware Events: Helps you to monitor and respond to top intrusion and malware events. The widget displays Intrusion Events and Malware Events and allows you to filter data for the last 90, 60, and 30 days. You can filter between Allowed (default) and Blocked events.

Figure 1. Dashboard with AIOps Insights Enabled

Announcements

Click the Announcements icon to look at the most recent Security Cloud Control features and updates. Links to related doucmentation is provided if you need more information on any of the items listed.