Great WLC
June 29, 2023
Great WLC
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Modules Used
- Cisco Catalyst 9800-40 Wireless Controller
Overall Satisfaction with Cisco Catalyst 9800 Series Wireless Controllers
We moved to two 9800 controllers about two years ago, replacing two 5520 WLCs. We are currently running two C9800s in high availability, and using them to manage 1300+ Cisco Aironet APs and WiFi access for 8000+ users in 84 buildings and outdoors.
- Easily manages a large number of APs.
- It can push out settings or a new OS to a large group of APs at once.
- The GUI is very intuitive, and follows the model Cisco has created for many of their products.
- It integrates well with our ISE environment for handling RADIUS requests.
- Depending on the version of IOS, it can be buggy. I have had several TAC calls that resulted in applying either a work-around, or upgrading the IOS.
- The error logs are a bit difficult to use. Errors and typical user associate/disassociate logs are all lumped together, so sometimes finding what you are looking for is like finding a needle in a haystack.
- One feature I miss from Prime Infrastructure is the ability to mass-configure settings on a large group of APs. Some of this exists within this controller, but many options, like templates, were lost, and never added to DNAC.
Do you think Cisco Catalyst 9800 Series Wireless Controllers delivers good value for the price?
Yes
Are you happy with Cisco Catalyst 9800 Series Wireless Controllers's feature set?
Yes
Did Cisco Catalyst 9800 Series Wireless Controllers live up to sales and marketing promises?
Yes
Did implementation of Cisco Catalyst 9800 Series Wireless Controllers go as expected?
No
Would you buy Cisco Catalyst 9800 Series Wireless Controllers again?
Yes
- Like I said previously, I am able to manage 1300+ APs and over 8000 users with room to grow. The deployment is easily expandable to by just adding a third controller, although it's my understanding that I would then lose HA.
- It doesn't always play nice with DNAC, so if you intend to use DNAC's wireless assurance and inventory management, you may need TAC support. For this reason alone, I would definitely include SmartNet in your purchase.
- These controllers allowed us to scale our environment up by about 500 more APs. We were able to improve the users' experience with better roaming and RF profiles that are supported.
- Cisco Aironet 2800 Series Access Points, Cisco Aironet 3800 Series Access Points, Cisco Aironet 1500 Series Access Points (discontinued), Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) and Cisco DNA Center
I like that everything is being moved to the Catalyst OS. This decreases the learning curve and streamlines administration.
As I mentioned earlier, it allows us to extend certain policies to a large number of APs all at once (for example an RF policy), but some features were lost with the retirement of Prime Infrastructure.