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Some Service Gateway deployments use BGP to exchange routes between the Service Gateway and the venue’s wider network — typically when the venue runs dynamic routing and doesn’t want static routes for guest subnets. The BGP tab on Service Gateway is where you configure the peering relationships. BGP is optional. Venues with a flat guest VLAN or a simple static handoff can skip it entirely.

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Peers list

Each BGP peer represents one neighbour the Service Gateway talks BGP to. For each peer you define:
  • Peer address — the neighbour’s IP.
  • Peer ASN — autonomous system number on the neighbour side.
  • Local ASN — the Service Gateway’s ASN.
  • Auth (optional) — MD5 password if the neighbour requires it.
  • Timers — keepalive and hold-down overrides, if the defaults don’t match.
  • Route policies — which routes to advertise and accept.

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When BGP helps

  • Anycast or multi-site deployments where routes need to converge based on health.
  • SD-WAN integrations (Viptela / Catalyst SD-WAN) where the fabric already relies on BGP.
  • Venues with their own core network team that manages routing via BGP and doesn’t want static route bookkeeping.

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When to stick with static routing

  • Single-site, flat-guest-VLAN venues with no redundancy requirements.
  • Meraki-only venues — you don’t have a Service Gateway, so BGP isn’t applicable.
  • Small deployments where the operational cost of BGP outweighs its convergence benefit.

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Setting up a peer

1

Coordinate ASNs and policies

Agree on ASNs and what routes each side will advertise. Write this down — route policy misconfiguration is the most common BGP-related incident.
2

Add the peer in Sign In

From the BGP tab, click Add Peer and enter the address, ASNs, and any auth / timers.
3

Configure the router

Mirror the peer configuration on the Cisco side. BGP on Service Gateway typically runs inside the IPsec tunnel to Netgraph.
4

Verify session is up

The Dashboard’s BGP Service Status card flips to active once the session establishes. show bgp summary on the router confirms the session state and prefix counts.

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Route policies

Be explicit about what the Service Gateway advertises. A permissive policy that advertises everything can black-hole traffic if the wider network expects only specific prefixes. Start narrow, expand as needed, and document every change.

IPsec

BGP typically runs inside the IPsec tunnel.

Gateways

Each Gateway can have BGP on or off independently.