Cisco Is Exiting MDM: Why Ivanti Probably Isn’t the Answer for Your Apple Fleet
If you manage your Apple fleet with Cisco Meraki Systems Manager, you are now on a clock. Cisco is retiring the product. You can no longer buy or renew licences. The platform reaches full end of support in 2029.
This is not a routine upgrade. It is a mandatory migration, and the replacement Cisco itself recommends is, for most Apple-focused businesses, the wrong destination.
This guide sets out the timeline clearly. It explains what happens to your enrolled devices and gives an honest view of the realistic options. It also covers why an Apple fleet needs different treatment from a general Windows estate. And it explains why Cisco’s suggested path to Ivanti often solves the wrong problem.
The timeline, and where you are in it
Cisco announced the end of Meraki Systems Manager on 3 December 2025. The dates that matter are straightforward.
On 3 December 2025, Cisco announced the end of sale and immediately stopped selling new five-year licences.
On 3 June 2026, the last one-year and three-year licences were sold. After that date, no new Meraki SM licences are available to anyone. You cannot add a single seat to your environment, even as an existing customer.
On 3 June 2029, support ends entirely. No security patches, no firmware updates, no technical assistance. The platform effectively goes dark.
If you are reading this in the second half of 2026, the purchasing window has already closed. You can keep running the licences you hold until they expire. But you cannot grow your fleet on Meraki, and you cannot renew indefinitely. The three-year runway to 2029 sounds generous. It is still a hard deadline, and migrating an MDM platform is not a weekend job.The sensible time to plan is now.
What actually happens to your enrolled devices
An end-of-sale announcement does not switch anything off today. Your Macs, iPhones and iPads currently enrolled in Meraki SM keep working as normal. They keep receiving policies and stay managed until you migrate, or until support ends in 2029.
The migration itself is where the real work sits, and it is worth understanding what it involves. Moving a device from one MDM to another is not a simple transfer. In almost all cases each device has to be unenrolled from Meraki and freshly enrolled into the new platform. Configuration profiles, apps, restrictions and compliance policies do not carry across automatically. They have to be rebuilt in the new system.
For company-owned Apple devices bought through Apple Business Manager, the process is cleaner. You reassign the devices from Meraki to your new MDM server in Apple Business, and they enrol into the new platform automatically at the next wipe or through the appropriate workflow. For older devices, or those not in Apple Business, the path is more manual and may involve touching each device.
This is precisely why starting early matters. A fleet of a few dozen devices is a manageable project. A fleet of several hundred, migrated in a rush before a deadline, is a different proposition entirely.
Why Cisco points you to Ivanti, and why that may not fit
As part of the wind-down, Cisco partnered with Ivanti and recommends Ivanti Neurons for MDM as the comparable replacement, offered through its SolutionsPlus programme. On paper this looks like the obvious path. Cisco suggests it, it supports the same operating systems, and it promises an easy migration.
Look closer and the fit is often poor, especially for Apple fleets.
Ivanti Neurons is a full unified endpoint management platform built for large, complex enterprise environments. It carries a minimum purchase threshold of 50 licences and onboarding typically requires dedicated professional services. If you came to Meraki Systems Manager because it was straightforward, moving to Ivanti can feel like a step in the wrong direction rather than a like-for-like replacement.
There is a telling pattern in Cisco’s own community forums. Existing Meraki customers, reacting to the end-of-life news, repeatedly say two things. Several had already planned to move their Apple devices to Jamf, having seen the writing on the wall. And many balk at Ivanti meaning yet another separate console to manage rather than the integrated experience they valued in Meraki. When a vendor’s own users are openly planning a different route from the one recommended, it is worth paying attention.
The deeper issue is that a general UEM platform treats Apple as one operating system among many. For a business whose fleet is mostly or entirely Apple, that generalist approach is exactly what causes the management gaps we see repeatedly.
Why Apple fleets need different treatment
This is the heart of the matter, and it is the reason the Cisco-to-Ivanti path is the wrong default for Apple-focused businesses.
Apple device management has specific requirements that general UEM platforms handle less well. Automated Device Enrolment through Apple Business, supervision, FileVault key escrow, the way macOS delivers configuration profiles, the speed of policy check-ins, and crucially the automated patching of third-party Mac applications. These are the areas where Apple-first platforms consistently outperform generalist ones.
A general UEM platform can technically manage Macs. It can enroll them, apply some policies and report on them. What it does less well is the depth. Third-party application patching on Mac is the clearest example. On a proper Apple-focused platform it is automated across hundreds of applications. On a generalist platform it often requires manual packaging and scripting, which is exactly the kind of gap that undermines both day-to-day management and Cyber Essentials compliance.
If your fleet is predominantly Apple, migrating from one generalist platform to another generalist platform does not fix the underlying mismatch. It simply moves it. The Meraki end-of-life is a forced decision point, and that makes it an opportunity to move to a platform genuinely built for your fleet rather than defaulting to whichever replacement the outgoing vendor happens to recommend.
The realistic options, and who each suits
Setting Ivanti aside as the default rather than the automatic answer, here are the platforms genuinely worth considering for an Apple or Apple-heavy fleet, with an honest view of who each suits.
Jamf Pro
Jamf Pro is the most capable Apple-focused MDM available and the natural destination for a business whose fleet is predominantly Apple. The solution offers the deepest Apple management, automated third-party patching across a large application catalogue, mature Automated Device Enrolment, and the strongest compliance reporting for frameworks like Cyber Essentials.
It suits businesses that take their Apple estate seriously and want best-in-class management. It is more than many small fleets strictly need, and it carries a cost that reflects its capability, but for an Apple-first business it is usually the right long-term home. Many of the Meraki customers reacting to the end-of-life news are heading precisely here.
Microsoft Intune
If your business runs on Microsoft 365 and your fleet is genuinely mixed, with a Windows majority and a minority of Macs, Intune is a sensible destination. It is included in Microsoft 365 Business Premium and above, so the cost may already be covered, and it manages Windows and Apple from one console tied into your Microsoft identity.
The honest caveat is the one we have written about before. Intune’s Apple management is functional rather than deep, with slower check-ins and no native third-party Mac patching. For a Windows-first business with a few Macs, that trade-off is acceptable. For an Apple-first fleet, it is not. Our Jamf Pro vs Microsoft Intune comparison covers exactly where each falls short.
Iru (formerly Kandji)
Iru is a strong, modern Apple-focused platform, well suited to businesses that want capable Apple management with a clean, straightforward experience. It offers good automation and a strong out-of-the-box compliance posture. For a business that found Meraki appealing because of its simplicity, Iru can feel like a more natural successor than a heavy enterprise UEM.
It suits Apple-first businesses that value ease of use and want strong management without the full depth and configurability of Jamf Pro.
FleetDM
FleetDM is the option for the technically minded. Fleet is open-source, built around modern practices, and lends itself to managing your fleet as code with full version control and automation. It manages Apple alongside Windows and Linux from a single workflow.
Fleet suits businesses with an engineering culture that want transparency, automation and control, and who have the technical capability to run it. It is not the right choice for a business wanting a polished, click-and-go console, but for the right team it is powerful. We have written separately about managing an Apple fleet as code if that direction interests you.
How to choose, briefly
The decision comes down to a few honest questions about your fleet.
- If your fleet is predominantly Apple and you want the best management available, Jamf Pro is the strongest destination.
- If you value simplicity and a modern Apple-focused experience, Iru is well worth considering.
- If you are genuinely Microsoft-first with a Windows majority and only a handful of Macs, Intune is pragmatic.
- If you have the engineering capability and want automation and control, FleetDM is compelling.
- And if you are a large, complex, multi-platform enterprise for whom a heavyweight UEM genuinely fits, Ivanti may be reasonable after all, though it rarely is for an Apple-focused business.
What matters is choosing based on your fleet, not on which replacement your outgoing vendor is paid to recommend.
How nDuo handles Meraki migrations for Apple fleets
We migrate Apple and Apple-heavy fleets off Meraki Systems Manager onto the platform that genuinely fits, rather than the one Cisco defaults you toward.
nDuo is a Jamf Elite Partner (one of only 14 in the UK), a Microsoft Partner, an Iru partner, a FleetDM partner, and one of only 11 Apple Premium Technical Partners in the country. We are accredited across every platform we might recommend, which is the point. We have run Apple fleets since 2011 and currently manage over 15,000 devices for UK businesses including Revolut, Kroo and Lottoland.
A typical migration we run looks like this. We audit your existing Meraki setup and document profiles, app, restriction and policy in place. Then we design the equivalent, improved configuration in the new platform. We reassign your Apple Business Manager devices to the new MDM server and plan the enrolment path for everything else. We migrate in controlled waves rather than all at once, so nothing breaks and your team keeps working throughout. And we make sure the result is not just a like-for-like copy but a genuine improvement on what Meraki gave you, particularly on patching, compliance and user experience.
Most migrations of 100 to 500 devices take four to eight weeks from audit to completion, depending on how much of your existing configuration needs rebuilding rather than replicating.
If you are running Meraki Systems Manager on an Apple fleet and weighing up where to go next, the worst option is to wait until 2029 approaches and migrate in a rush. The best option is to plan now, on your timeline, onto a platform built for your fleet.
Read our Jamf Pro vs Microsoft Intune comparison to understand the two most common destinations in more detail, or our zero touch deployment guide to see how enrolment works on the platform you move to.
Book a free consultation with our team to plan your Meraki migration and get an honest recommendation on the right platform for your Apple fleet.