What do I need to get heat maps from 5520 controller? ('22)

[Just Someone YKnow]

We are a small organization with 50 3802i on a 5520 controller. I'd like to produce coverage heat maps of our building floorplan.

I am expecting that I am going to have to buy more radios to increase capacity, and that would help to know where we need to put them.

I've been wading through the website trying to answer this by myself, but it seems Cisco keeps changing their product terminology every couple of years. 

Is it Prime Infrastructure 3.10 ? Apparently it's not Spectrum Expert.

I don't think we need DNA. Seems like Cisco wants to sell potential customers on these huge all-encompassing management systems with a "single page of glass". I don't need all that, I am just looking for heat maps of our building floorplan.

I would not be buying a dedicated server for this. We have capacity for another virtual machine on our Dell R730s running VMWare 7.

[Rasika Nayanajith]

Prime Infrastructure will not last long, Cisco DNA Center is the replacement. 

If you really want to measure RF, then look for a site survey products. 

HTH
Rasika

[Just Someone YKnow]

So, apparently to merely get access to heat maps, I would need the DNA Center appliance.

https://itprice.com/cisco/dn2-hw-apl.html

Cisco DNA Center Appliance (Gen 2) - 44 Core. -- $104,619.79

And this is just a portion of what is needed. Lol, no way will this ever happen. This is more than the entire cost of our original wifi deployment.

It's pretty clear that when a school classroom without its own 3802i AP is having Chromebooks and Windows devices that don't get a DHCP response, that there is a coverage hole and an AP needs to be installed there.

Huh, and I figured that out by myself without spending $100+k to have an unnecessarily overbearingly expensive management tool tell me.

[Leo Laohoo]

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@Just Someone YKnow wrote:
So, apparently to merely get access to heat maps, I would need the DNA Center appliance.

Cisco DNA Center Appliance (Gen 2) - 44 Core. -- $104,619.79

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DNAC uses the same business model as razors and razorblades (or printers and print cartridges).  

The "cost" of a DNAC appliance is cheap.  Have a look at the cost to renew the DNAC license. 

Nobody "buys" DNAC appliance because Cisco is giving them away for FREE:  Free Cisco DNA Center Appliance with Qualifying Subscription Purchase

[ammahend]

You can not get heat map from 5520 WLC, however if you run this command "show ap auto-rf 802.11a <AP_NAME> and scroll down to section "Nearby AP", you can see how strongly APs see each other, and this can give you some sense of coverage hole, its not as straightforward, but it is what is it and take a little bit of time, you can start with APs in problematic areas.

As Rasika mentioned look at investing in survey tool, Ekahau will cost you around $6000, however you can download ekahau for free, use evaluation version when prompted for license, you can test coverage holes, you just wont be able to save anything. it can be a temporary fix to your problem for $0.

Secondly, the DNAC price you mentioned is not education SKU and it just list price, there are heavy discounts for educational SKU, talk to a Cisco Partner in your area, Also DNAC is not just for heatmap, it does much more and is a powerful tool for day to day wireless troubleshooting, getting assurance data from network (both wired and wireless) and automating deployment. Talk to a partner to see if its a good fit for you.