Cisco Catalyst 9800-L Wireless Controller Access Point Signal Strenght

[QuickQuestioner]

Hi Everyone,

I am a little bit of a newbie with WLCs and I have a couple quick questions.

I am dealing with this WLC 9800-L that is deployed with multiple APs under it, most of them being AIR-AP2802I-A-K9 and some C9115AXI-A.

I was asked to check if there is any way we can get the information from the Signal Strength of these AP's for monitoring. I ended up spending hours trying to come up with an SNMP Poller and trying to figure out the correct OID on the SNMPWalk for this WLC that would provide me the info of every single AP. However, after taking a step back, i noticed that even on the WLC GUI itself, I am unable to see the signal strength of any of the APs.

I also noticed that the on the CLI i am not able to get any info using 'show client', ' show ap radio' or no other command of this kind.

My questions are:
Is that something that needs to be enable?
Can I pull this info using an OID and if so what is the OID? (I got to .1.3.6.1.4.1.9.9.615.1.1.1.1.6.1 , and ChatGPT told me that this represents 1 AP, but under the SNMP walk i have .1.3.6.1.4.1.9.9.615.1.1.1.1.6.1 and .1.3.6.1.4.1.9.9.615.1.1.1.1.6.2 although I have over 20 APs under that WLC, so that doesn't make much sense to me, but again I am a newbie).
What is the command to see this info on the CLI.

I thank y'all in advance for the help.

[Flavio Miranda]

@QuickQuestioner 

Dont waste your time with SNMP.  Take a look on the link below. 

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/wireless/controller/9800/technical-reference/catalyst-9800-programmability-telemetry-deployment-guide.html

[QuickQuestioner]

@Flavio Miranda 
That all looks really nice and all, but you may have missed the part where I said "I am a bit of a newbie". I skimmed through this article and if I understood 10% was too much lol.

What are the advantages of it? To implement it, will it affect the current setup in any shape or form? The current setup is in production so I am afraid of doing too many changes, thus I was looking for the SNMP.

If I implement this, will I be able to see all this info on the current WLC interface or will I have to use a different tool? 

Let me know.
Thank you for the quick reply, is much appreciated!

[Flavio Miranda · Accepted solution]

 When it comes to Telemetry, everyone is sort of newbie. This is a new concept but I believe it will the new standard. 

SNMP willt be no easier for you, maybe harder. 

"What are the advantages of it? To implement it, will it affect the current setup in any shape or form? The current setup is in production so I am afraid of doing too many changes, thus I was looking for the SNMP.

 Flexibility.  Accuracy. Documentation. 

I would recommend to run this in a Lab but I see no harm as the idea  is read data from WLC and not change config. 

"If I implement this, will I be able to see all this info on the current WLC interface or will I have to use a different tool? "

Different tool. This is meant  to collect data from the device with programmability.  But with SNMP would not be different. 

[QuickQuestioner]

I will definitely have to look into it more. From your knowledge, am I able to get the signal strength for individual APs using telemetry? My initial idea to be quite frank was to achieve all of it through OIDs so I could poll it using a different network managing tool. But the more I look into it, the more I am noticing that I will need another tool to get this info.

[Flavio Miranda]

Check 

Native configuration models

Yes, definitelly you are going to need another tool. No way WLC will give you this. Previouly Cisco had Cisco Prime which could help you on this. Now, they have DNAC but you need to be willing to sell your liver to buy one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPzGhn2AIDM

[marce1000]

  - As stated already ; snmp support is rather limited ; slightly from a different viewpoint, but  take a look at :
  https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/docs/wireless/catalyst-9800-series-wireless-controllers/217738-monitor-catalyst-9800-kpis-key-performa.html#toc-hId--940480618

                          You will get related info's and more ,

  M.

[QuickQuestioner]

Interesting article @marce1000 lots of info. I gave it a shot and was able to get utilization and Txpwr. It's not exactly signal strength per se, but it helps. Are you aware if is there any way that I can get the same info using an OID from that WLC?

[marce1000 · Accepted solution]

  @QuickQuestioner  Not through SNMP , if we talk about signal strength per AP , then that is organized by the controller using the TPC (transmit power control) and DCA (dynamic channel allocation) algorithms which run periodically. One could say : 'its a topic for the controller' -> which tries to organize coverage in the best way according to the available APs and their location. So  the more important thing is what happens before : such as a wireless site survey (mandatory) before APs get placed.

  But also on your current controller , checkout it's configuration with the CLI command
  show tech wireless  and feed the output from that into Wireless Config Analyzer
                      Very useful to do and a 'must have' so to speak.

 M.

[QuickQuestioner]

Interesting! Thank you so much for all this info! Very useful.