Cisco DNAC Wireless Implementation

[darylmitchel7]

Hey Guys!

Hope you guys are having a great week!

Wanted to get some ideas and advise for the below…

We are currently a Cisco shop where we manage a handful of Cisco 3504 Wireless Controllers. We have DNAC which is amazing as its a one stop shop.

We have had our DNAC for less than a year and we typically manage our WLCs separately. We want to migrate our 3504s to 9800 WLCs. Now that we are making a big change, I was thinking of reconfiguring all our wireless network SSIDs and controllers via DNAC. All 3504s have similar SSIDs, so just a matter of pushing what to where. That way we standardize every SSID to make sure its all the same.

Any thoughts, or advise before we fully implement and we look back and say “crap we should have done this” or “should have never gone via DNAC”?

[b.winter]

Why do you post a question about Wireless controllers in the Collab forum? What does it have to do with Collab?!

[balaji.bandi]

Thats moving forward step, anyway due to time that OLD WLC going to be end of Life and you need to Migrate to Cat 9800 WLC

Make sure your AP have compatability with Cat 9800 when you Migrating the WLC (also plan for AP Migration to 9K since old Ap also go end of Life soon)

I follow below guide : (i will upgrade DNAC (Catalyst center to 2.3.7 to get more Wireless MAP and other features).

https://www.cisco.com/c/dam/en/us/td/docs/cloud-systems-management/network-automation-and-management/dna-center/deploy-guide/cisco-dna-center-sd-access-wl-dg.pdf

Note : there are some gottachas to remmember not 100% you can use for WLC configuration automation, you need to do some partial manual confguration , may be later version cisco may offer you 100% (TAC or partner may can guide you).

[Preston Chilcote]

@darylmitchel7 Your use case is a perfect candidate for using DNA.  It sounds like you may only need a single wireless profile to push to all sites, thought it's no big deal if you need a different combo of SSIDs in certain places as it just means creating different wireless profiles.  Using DNA means you don't have to learn much of 9800 configuration paradigm just to get the wireless stood up.  Lastly, using DNA to provision the WLCs lets you take advantage of other advanced features down the road, like AI-RRM.