Cisco Catalyst 9800 Series Wireless Controllers review
November 15, 2024

Cisco Catalyst 9800 Series Wireless Controllers review

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Modules Used

  • Cisco Catalyst 9800-80 Wireless Controller

Overall Satisfaction with Cisco Catalyst 9800 Series Wireless Controllers

We are currently using two 9800-80 Cisco Catalyst 9800 Series Wireless Controllers in HA for our production environment to manage our wireless fleet. One of the challenges we face is that it would be ideal if the controllers could handle more than 6,000 APs. Our fleet currently has over 6,500 APs, and it continues to grow.

Pros

  • Radioactive trace is very useful GUI troubleshooting tool.
  • Packet capture is very useful GUI troubleshooting tool.
  • Overall GUI is more user friendly than 8540 GUI.

Cons

  • If possible, please add a column for WAP Name and WAP Model within the 2.4/5/6 GHz radio sections, as we have different models of WAPs in the fleet, and it would be easier to identify WAPs within a building.
  • We conduct digital exams for our students. If there is a way to identify clients and block traffic for applications like ChatGPT, it would be greatly appreciated. Currently, there is no filter for ChatGPT or generative AI.
  • The newer controllers are more robust and capable of supporting newer WAPs, such as WiFi 6 or WiFi 6E. With the announcement of WiFi 7 WAPs at Cisco Live 2024 in Melbourne, we will be better equipped to provide services for high-throughput applications and support clients in high-density environments.
  • The overall GUI has improved from 8540 and it is easier to manage.
  • One point I would like to mention is that integrating Prime with the Cisco Catalyst 9800 Series Wireless Controllers would be great, as it would allow us to receive real-time user data.
Currently, we are managing our production wireless controllers with Catalyst Center. Cisco Catalyst Center has a lot of issues, making our work very challenging. We are on the recommended release 2.3.5.5, which has many bugs. While it offers a lot of promising features and is a fantastic tool for reviewing historical data to troubleshoot user issues, it cannot be used as a real-time operational tool. In our case, we cannot use DNAC for real-time client monitoring during digital exams, as there is a 15-20 second lag.
Overall, the product is okay; however, there is room for improvement. There should be a quick button to capture all necessary data before we fail over or reload the stack. We are currently on version 17.12.3, and we had an instance where the WLC experienced a memory leak. Having a feature to proactively collect all logs before a restart would be greatly beneficial.
As mentioned earlier, it is a good tool for troubleshooting but cannot be used as an operational tool. Adding this feature in the near future would be very helpful for the operations team.
Yes, the idea is great as all the policies are being managed centrally and pushed out to the controllers at once and all production controllers are in sync. However, while provisioning controllers there is a mandatory downtime which is a bit scary.

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?

I wasn't involved with the selection/purchase process

Did implementation of Cisco Catalyst 9800 Series Wireless Controllers go as expected?

I wasn't involved with the implementation phase

Would you buy Cisco Catalyst 9800 Series Wireless Controllers again?

Yes

The newer controllers are more robust and capable of supporting newer WAPs, such as WiFi 6 or WiFi 6E WAPs. With these controllers, we are able to use 9166D WAPs to enable a 6 GHz network for our digital exams. Using the 6 GHz network spectrum has helped us increase the student capacity.

Cisco Catalyst 9800 Series Wireless Controllers Feature Ratings

Wireless LAN
8.0
WLAN Performance Monitoring
8
Topology Maps
8
Layer 7 Visibility
7
Wireless Security
9

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