“He Who Dares, Wins”   I like that…. I find it interesting.  For the last few months I have a support ticket open for what is called a “cosmetic issue” or so I’m told.  And, that issue is, all of my Cisco Meraki MS220-8P switches are showing the  incorrect LED status, for any ports and even the main switch status light.

Here’s a somewhat bad photo that shows what I’m talking about:

The main status light on the far left is Amber, that should be Green.  However, if Port One is unplugged, which currently is showing Amber, the switch status light turns off. And, instead of showing Amber on the ports, it should show Green.  Hmm.

Cosmetic Issue …. Yeah … the switch itself appears to function fine, I have not noticed any issues with devices being able to pass traffic or any related performance metrics that are not meeting a goal. So Okay, then what are we winning?  Well, let me explain what I’m thinking….

Could Cisco Meraki be doing a client test or collecting information to see who actually looks at port lights? If we are moving to a complete cloud based system do we really need lights? Sure, I would think, maybe a power light, to say “hey, I have power, or I’m not doing well”.  BUT, how often do you *really* look at your switches or even look at each switch port status? From the (wireless) access point side of things, people want the status LED turned off.  Some people just do not like it.  Maybe that approach is making a road towards switches and other devices, turn all the lights off.

………… or maybe someone messed up and just hasn’t fixed it???