Cisco Catalyst 9800 Series Wireless Controllers review
February 16, 2025

Cisco Catalyst 9800 Series Wireless Controllers review

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

Modules Used

  • Cisco Catalyst 9800-CL Wireless Controller

Overall Satisfaction with Cisco Catalyst 9800 Series Wireless Controllers

We are using about 900 Cisco access points in our campus network. We have used hardware controllers and Central switching before but as we started buying 9100 series access points we found out that the easiest way to get them centrally managed is to spin up Cisco Catalyst 9800 Series Wireless Controllers in our virtualization environment VMware.

Pros

  • Quick installation
  • Its virtual and I can install it on-prem
  • Stability
  • User interface

Cons

  • AP enrollment
  • Sites and Tag configuration is complicated for starters
  • Best practice check would be nice
  • Virtual appliance is free
  • Good support
  • Scalable - supports from small to large deployments
Central management is a must for larger deployments. Adding new Sites and APs is simple. Virtual controller has been running very stable. There also some troubleshooting options built in which is nice.
High availability or controller redundancy screen shows some weird warnings and I havent got a reasonable explanation for this yet from Cisco engineers. Even Cisco Live slideshow showed the same screen
I don't remember having any downtimes or crashes. But the odd warning messages, which I explained in the previous answer, is why I didn't give max points.
Central management ensures that all the APs are configured with the same settings and policies. Extending wireless network or adding new sites is very easy if you are already familiar with the configuration.
Cisco Catalyst 9800 Series Wireless Controllers is more modern, looks better, supports newer access points. Using different tags - site tags, policy tags, etc. is a nice way to configure different access point groups or locations. Also Cisco Catalyst 9800 Series Wireless Controllers has introduced some troubleshooting options.

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?

Yes

Would you buy Cisco Catalyst 9800 Series Wireless Controllers again?

Yes

Better stability compared to Mobility Express.
Quick installation
Very scalable - up to 2000 APs
I am suggesting to put AP mode to Flexconnect
If you prefer to keep APs in Local mode and need good performance I would suggest physical Cisco Catalyst 9800 Series Wireless Controllers instead.

Cisco Catalyst 9800 Series Wireless Controllers Feature Ratings

Wireless LAN
7.8
Zero-Touch Provisioning
8
WLAN Performance Monitoring
7
Layer 7 Visibility
7
Wireless Security
9

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