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Cisco Catalyst 9800 Series Wireless Controllers vs. Intermapper

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Cisco Catalyst 9800 Series Wireless Controllers

    Score9 out of 10
    N/AThe Cisco Catalyst 9800-80 is a modular wireless controller with optional 100 Gigabit Ethernet (G) modular uplinks boasting seamless software updates for large enterprises and campuses, and security with ETA and SD-Access.N/A

    Intermapper

    Score8.4 out of 10
    N/AIntermapper is a network monitoring and mapping software for hybrid environments. Intermapper provides real-time performance alerts and bandwidth monitoring with cross-platform functionality.N/A
    Pricing
    Cisco Catalyst 9800 Series Wireless ControllersIntermapper
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Cisco Catalyst 9800 Series Wireless ControllersIntermapper
    Free Trial
    NoYes
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoYes
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoYes
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeOptional
    Additional Details—Intermapper pricing is based on number of devices monitored. Intermapper is free for 5 devices or less. Subscription pricing starts at $303 for 25 devices. Device-based pricing starts at $765 for 25 devices.
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Cisco Catalyst 9800 Series Wireless ControllersIntermapper
    Considered Both Products
    Cisco
    No answer on this topic
    Fortra
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    99%
    Would buy again
    103 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Delivers good value for the price
    96%
    Delivers good value for the price
    92 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Happy with the feature set
    97%
    Happy with the feature set
    101 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    94%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    76 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation went as expected
    86%
    Implementation went as expected
    83 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Features
    Cisco Catalyst 9800 Series Wireless ControllersIntermapper
    Network Performance Monitoring
    Comparison of Network Performance Monitoring features of Cisco Catalyst 9800 Series Wireless Controllers and Intermapper
    Feature
    Cisco Catalyst 9800 Series Wireless Controllers
    -
    Ratings
    Intermapper
    7.2
    8 Ratings
    10% below category average
    Automated network device discovery00 Ratings7.05 Ratings
    Network monitoring00 Ratings8.08 Ratings
    Baseline threshold calculation00 Ratings7.05 Ratings
    Alerts00 Ratings7.08 Ratings
    Network capacity planning00 Ratings7.03 Ratings
    Packet capture analysis00 Ratings7.04 Ratings
    Network mapping00 Ratings8.07 Ratings
    Wireless infrastructure monitoring00 Ratings7.05 Ratings
    Hardware health monitoring00 Ratings7.07 Ratings
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    Cisco Catalyst 9800 Series Wireless ControllersIntermapper
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    User Ratings
    Cisco Catalyst 9800 Series Wireless ControllersIntermapper
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.0
    (109 ratings)
    8.0
    (9 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    8.7
    (6 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Usability
    9.0
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Availability
    8.9
    (107 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Performance
    8.7
    (108 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Support Rating
    8.5
    (3 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Configurability
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Vendor post-sale
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Vendor pre-sale
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Cisco Catalyst 9800 Series Wireless ControllersIntermapper
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Cisco
    Well suited for most of our customer base because it is a versatile, scalable, large multi-campus organizations. Not so: Brandish deployments where there's a much more simplified feature set needed. So where we can basically rely on Meraki as a cloud base with easier to deploy.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Fortra
    Intermapper is a light weight, quick and easy to use monitoring application. It will get you up and monitoring key infrastructure devices with a simple management interface and effective alert system that doesn't generate a lot of noise. It provides mobile device access through a web interface and is relatively inexpensive.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    Cisco
    • I think the updates are great. ISSU upgrading code is fantastic. I think the speed with which CAPWAP converges or reconverges, I think the redundancy mechanisms for roaming APs to other controllers is very good. I think overall, getting away from more of a monolithic processor where subprocesses handle what they call the WNCD tasks, I think fundamentally is an improvement in performance.
    • The radioactive tracing, all of the troubleshooting and all of the logging and all of the importing and exporting features for logging and analytics within the controller itself is really, really good compared to the predecessor AireOS.
    Incentivized
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    Fortra
    • The best thing about Intermapper is that it is map-based. You start by building your map, which is done completely automatically. I've used many different monitoring software packages, Solarwinds, Nagios, Opmanager, and it is a royal PITA to create live maps with those.
    • Another great feature is that it shows you, visually, the bandwidth utilization of your network by using "ants" and color codes. Incredibly useful.
    • Alarms are very easy to setup, again much easier than the packages mentioned above.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    Cisco
    • The biggest issues we have had have been software related. Requiring code upgrades or reloads to fix an unfixable problem.
    • Some of the troubleshooting utilities aren't perfectly clear as to what theyre doing or how to set them up or what to expect results wise or resource wise.
    • I think there is a lack of filtering in certain displays where you cannot use the "contains" option for certain device type filtering. But those options should be universal in all views.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Fortra
    • Setting up probes in bulk can be difficult, so it can take a long time to get the system set up correctly to start.
    • Sometimes the probes can be sensitive and report false positives.
    • Interface can be a little clunky and non intuitive at times.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Cisco
    Despite common software and hardware issues this is still the best product on the market for large scale enterprise deployments. Cisco has worked with us extensively to reduce the amount of bugs in every iteration however new bugs are introduced or new incompatibilities always arise with major releases. Thus, while I'm hesitant to recommend the product it's still much better than all the other competitors such as Aruba and Juniper in the WIFi space. There is also extensive integration with DNAC/Catalyst Center and ISE in an SDA deployment. Recently there has been a number of critical issues with the controller software and Cisco has proved themselves to be incapable of timely troubleshooting and diagnosis. This has reduced our confidence in the product and it's current and future stability and maintainability. At it's current state the product is taking up too much of our engineering resources to maintain despite also paying for premium support from Cisco. As such I have reduced by rating as we are likely to look at alternative vendors for our long-term wireless management solution
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Fortra
    No answers on this topic
    Usability
    Cisco
    It's not simple, but this is the result of being very deeply configurable
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Fortra
    No answers on this topic
    Reliability and Availability
    Cisco
    Honestly, in the six years that we've been using it, we've had one, I would say show stopping event. There was an issue with in an HA setup they would every so often when rebooted lose all configuration. So that was a bit disappointing, required quite a few hours to resolve, but Cisco had to fix very quickly and once we implemented that, we've not had any further additional issues.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Fortra
    No answers on this topic
    Performance
    Cisco
    We have been using the Cisco Catalyst 9800 Series Wireless Controllers for over 2 years and the whole system has been very stable. We currently run them in HA and have found when this has been activated (due to power issues etc.) the units change roles seamlessly, minimising the downtime to almost nothing. Except when we have had major issues, our wireless networks have a solid uptime and keeps our whole borough up 24/7 without problems.
    Incentivized
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    Fortra
    No answers on this topic
    Support Rating
    Cisco
    the overall support on the 9800 Wireless lan controller is good. Wireless issues are sometimes hard to troubleshoot since it's the RF that make it complex and the diversity in clients and requirements. The engineers do a good job in understanding the scope and issue, altough not all issues can be solved
    Incentivized
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    Fortra
    The product works well and is very easy to maintain. As such, we haven't had many occasions to use support. When we have called them they were easy to contact and responsive to our questions. We have had the product for years and it may have been a year or better since the last time we contacted them.
    Incentivized
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    Implementation Rating
    Cisco
    You need to understand wifi basics
    Incentivized
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    Fortra
    No answers on this topic
    Alternatives Considered
    Cisco
    Ubiquiti WLAN is very much a consumer platform. It is not production ready, it is buggy, it has issues. It is cheaper than Cisco, but you get what you pay for. Aruba doesn't integrate nicely with our existing largely Cisco based networks, so when time came to replace AireOS, the Cisco Catalyst 9800 Series Wireless Controllers came out on top.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Fortra
    Intermapper is a cross between WhatsUp Gold and Nagios. WhatsUp Gold being for a less technical end-user and Nagios doing more than just SNMP scans and up down monitoring.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Scalability
    Cisco
    There are different vesrions for different requirements, there's HA as well.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Fortra
    No answers on this topic
    Return on Investment
    Cisco
    • Positive impacts, yeah, is good to have a central location to control all these profiles for different countries and locations. And the drawback, like I said to you really because of the too many integrations that have a dependency on the software version. For example, Cisco ONE for Access have certain software that can run through and then this scatter center need to make sure it's working with the others APS version that is currently working. And we also, the Cisco Catalyst Center also have some kind another version of software that you need to support this controller. So it's like two tier three tiers of the software version that we need to match. Then only it can work.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Fortra
    • Downtime costs money. Every minute we can get ahead of an outage is time that a plant is not sitting there waiting. We don't need to wait for a call from a plant, we know they are down immediately and we can begin troubleshooting.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots

    Intermapper Screenshots

    Screenshot of Intermapper maps are flexible to configure exactly to your liking.Screenshot of See your devices on a Google map. Access on any device with our web-based version.Screenshot of Device statuses give you real-time information about how your equipment is performing