For Catalyst Center environments, the MCP server and the AI experience can run within the same controlled network boundary. Self-hosting Meraki MCP provides deployment and customization control, but it does not make Meraki Dashboard itself air-gapped; live Meraki data still requires an approved connection to the cloud-managed Dashboard. Hosted Meraki MCP: the lowest-friction pathThe Cisco-hosted Meraki MCP server is designed for teams that want to connect an AI client to Meraki with minimal operational overhead. The examples below are illustrative outputs from an AI application built with network data accessed through the Meraki MCP server. Choose the hosted Meraki MCP server when simplicity and speed are the priority.