Cisco Meraki MS42 end of life: end of support dates

MS42 lifecycle milestones

The MS42 ships in 4 trim variants. They differ in chassis, radio or port trim, and they share one End of Support date, so a single deadline covers all of them.

What the date means

Meraki is the strictest of the three because the hardware is inseparable from the cloud service. End of Support lands five years after End of Sale, and past it the unit loses firmware, dashboard support and hardware replacement eligibility. A Meraki device is licensed as well as managed, so an out-of-support unit is not merely unpatched, it is an unpatched appliance whose management plane you no longer have a supported relationship with.

A switch past End of Support is a slower burn than a firewall but it is not benign. It carries your management VLAN and often your out-of-band access, so a switch compromise is a lateral-movement problem rather than a perimeter one. The practical risk is usually availability: no advance hardware replacement means a failed unit is sourced from the second-hand market, at whatever speed that market allows.

For the full vendor policy see the Cisco Meraki EOL guide, and if the terminology is the confusing part, EOL vs EOS vs EOSL separates the three milestones that get used interchangeably.

What replaces the MS42?

Cisco Meraki has not published a named one-to-one successor for the MS42, which is the common case outside of RUCKUS lifecycle notices. The practical approach is to pick the current model in the same product line at similar capacity, then check its End of Support date before ordering rather than after.

Every Cisco Meraki switch we hold a date for is now out of support, so there is no shortlist to offer here. The full Cisco Meraki end-of-support list is the place to check what else is affected.

Common questions

When does the Cisco Meraki MS42 reach end of support?

The Cisco Meraki MS42 reached End of Support on April 26, 2021. It no longer receives firmware or security updates and is not eligible for support or hardware replacement.

Do the MS42 variants share the same end of support date?

Yes. MS42, MS42P, MS42-HW, MS42P-HW all carry the same End of Support date of April 26, 2021. They differ in chassis or radio trim rather than lifecycle.

Does a switch stop working at end of support?

No. The switch keeps passing traffic. What stops is firmware fixes, vendor support and hardware replacement under contract, so any vulnerability disclosed after that date is never patched on that unit.