A retailer installed dashboard-managed access points in its stores and is waiting for them to join the on-premises Catalyst 9800. They never appear. Which architecture were those access points built for?
Select an answer to reveal the explanation.
Short Explanation
Those access points already have a home, and it is the cloud dashboard, not your campus controller. Waiting for a CAPWAP join is waiting for a train on the wrong platform. Claim them in the dashboard that was meant to run them.
Full Explanation
Cloud dashboard wireless, such as a Meraki dashboard deployment, is managed and claimed in the dashboard. Those access points do not join an on-premises Catalyst 9800 over CAPWAP, so they will never appear in the 9800 join list. The architecture they were built for is cloud dashboard management, and the stores are configured there. Local mode is a 9800 access-point mode for Cisco controller-based access points. A dashboard-managed access point is not claimed over CAPWAP just because a 9800 exists on the WAN. Fabric mode is SD-Access wireless with a controller in the control plane. It is not a prerequisite step that dashboard access points pass through by joining a 9800. Mesh mode is a wireless backhaul between a root and other access points. It does not turn the 9800 into the dashboard, and it does not explain a dashboard-managed unit that was never a controller-based mesh AP. Exam caveat: some Catalyst access-point models can be migrated between controller management and dashboard management. Until that migration is actually done, they still belong to the mode they are in now. Operational check: look in the dashboard inventory for the access-point serials, claim them into the store network, and stop expecting them on the 9800 join page.