Cisco 9800 Series Wireless Controllers

Cisco Catalyst 9800 Series Wireless Controllers are the next generation wireless controllers that

  • are IOS XE based and integrate the Radio Frequency (RF) performance excellence from Aironet systems,

  • supports intent-based networking that are easy to adapt and scale, and

  • are available in multiple physical and virtual form factors for flexible management options.

Available form factors and deployment options

You can deploy the controllers as physical appliances or as virtual devices in private and public cloud environments.

The controllers cater to these deployment options:

  • Cisco Catalyst 9800 Series Wireless Controller Appliance

  • Cisco Catalyst 9800 Series Wireless Controller for Cloud

  • Cisco Catalyst 9800 Embedded Wireless for Switch

Management options

You can managed them the Cisco Catalyst 9800 Series Wireless Controllers with:

  • Cisco Catalyst Center

  • NETCONF or YANG, or

  • GUI or CLI.

Cisco Prime Infrastructure is also supported.

Configuration data model

A configuration data model is a framework that

  • enables reusability of network settings and components

  • supports simplified provisioning for scalable network management, and

  • provides enhanced flexibility and modularization to adapt to changing business and IT requirements.

For more information, see Information About New Configuration Model.

Initial controller setup methods

The initial configuration wizard in Cisco Catalyst 9800 Series Wireless Controller is a simplified, out-of-the-box installation and configuration interface for the controller. This section provides instructions to set up a controller to operate in a small, medium, or large network wireless environment, where access points can join and together as a simple solution provide various services, such as corporate employee or guest wireless access on the network.

Setting up the controller using GUI

To set up the controller using the GUI, see the Configuring Wireless Controller section in Cisco Catalyst 9800 Wireless Controller Series Web UI Deployment Guide.

Setting up the controller using CLI

To set up the controller using CLIs, see the Performing the Initial Configuration on the Controller section of your respective controller installation guides.

Interactive help

Interactive help is a user interface feature that

  • provides step-by-step guidance within the application

  • adapts instructions and walk-throughs to the user's context, and

  • assists users in completing complex configurations or navigating the system.

Modes of starting the interactive Help

You can start the interactive help in the these ways.

  • Hover over the blue flap at the right-hand corner of a window in the GUI and clicking Interactive Help.

  • Click Walk-me Thru in the left pane of a window in the GUI.

  • Click Show me How whenever displayed in the GUI. Clicking Show me How triggers a specific interactive help that is relevant to the context you are in.

    For example, Show me How in Configure > AAA walks you through the various steps for configuring a RADIUS server. Choose Configuration> Wireless Setup > Advanced and click Show me How to trigger the interactive help that walks you through the steps relating to various kinds of authentication.

Additional troubleshooting information

If the WalkMe launcher is unavailable on Safari, modify the browser settings.

  1. Choose Preferences > Privacy.

  2. In the Website tracking section, uncheck the Prevent cross-site tracking check box to disable this action.

  3. In the Cookies and website data section, uncheck the Block all cookies check box to disable this action.