Webinar August 20th at 11:00 am GMT-4 (that’s US eastern DST), Register now.
I’ve been working with Meraki for about 3 years now and I’ve always thought the Dashboard API (version 0 or v0) was clever in its implementation. Originally, Meraki added in the API to meet customer requests. Though the majority of the implementation felt “API first” some nuances indicated that it was bolted-on as needed. That being said, it has proven for years to be a useful tool in network creation, management, and monitoring.
Demonstrable ROI
The Meraki Dashboard API has provided a demonstrable ROI for thousands of organizations, saving time and effort by allowing them to build networks and applications for how they manage IT. There are numerous examples of branch structured organizations (retail, trucking, etc.) that leverage the Dashboard API to build applications that allow on-site associates to deploy and manage their local networks and devices.
Working in conjunction with DevNet, Meraki adopted an “API First” mentality in the development of the first NEW version of the Dashboard API (v1 as we’re referring to it). Now, Meraki is ready to unveil the resulting improvements!
Enhanced Developer Experience
The most notable change to the Meraki Dashboard API for v1 is the documentation. V1 documentation in organized by hierarchical structure, then product, and finally function within a product. This allows for a quicker developer evaluation of API functionality and removes the guessing game of which endpoint lines up with which Dashboard function. Following that, the endpoint resource definitions fall in line with how they are structured in the documentation. Add in improved consistency in response data formatting and these changes provide a more streamlined experience that will speed API implementations.
Increased Efficiency
One of the major challenges for new developers in using the Meraki API is the rate limit. This can be a particular issue when organizations are managing dozens of networks with hundreds of devices that have thousands of clients connected to them. The ability to manage that in real time is limited. However, with v1, a focus was put on high-volume data retrieval for GET operations allowing an organization to cut down the number of API calls being made. Combine this improvement with Meraki Action Batches and devs may never see a 429 error ever again!
Strategic Role Based Access Control
This change is for all the managed service providers out there. Meraki historically required that an administrator using an API Key have organization READ access at minimum to use the Dashboard APIs. This was a tricky limitation in situations where developers should only have had access to either specific customer networks within an organization or test networks only. With v1, the dashboard APIs can now be used by administrators that are cordoned to specific networks and no organization level access is required.
Want to Learn More?
If you’d like to learn more and see some cool demonstrations with the new version of the API, I am hosting a webinar on August 20th at 11:00 am GMT-4 (that’s US eastern DST). In this session I’ll go over some details of what you see above and help get you started on the path to adopting Meraki’s new version of its awesome API. If you’d like to get started working with v1 before that, feel free to check out the new docs on DevNet!
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That was nice demo Matt, especially illustrating difference between traditional way of invoking API and action batches. Is it possible to share the scripts you have used for demo?